Best of Times, Worst of Times

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."
--Charles Dickens

The oxymoronic juxtaposition of ideas is how I am feeling about my work at present. It is stressful and exciting, wonderful and depressing… usually all in the same day. The days seem interminably long, and yet they are quickly ticking away.

I have struggled this week to complete my work and be supportive to my friends and colleagues. One was asked to re-write his dissertation last week. We’re collaborators, and one chapter of each of our theses is mostly the same and is supposed to be submitted as a manuscript for publication. Another, SS, is still working up the data to include in her thesis which is due this week. We’re office-mates, and it’s hard to watch her under pressure to finish writing. (She’s taken two breaks to go home, one early this morning to shower and one this evening for dinner and to feed her cats, but has otherwise been at work since 4pm Sunday and plans to be here through Tuesday afternoon!) Two colleagues also successfully passed their dissertation defenses last week. Congrats to Drs. Li and Sun. Half of my graduate school classmates (those who made it through the first two years) have now graduated. And the reason I am dreading August’s approach (as Antonia questioned below) is because my completed dissertation is due at the beginning of the month, and I will have my oral defense later in the month. This is an enormous task. DT has declared himself by biggest cheerleader; so far, he’s doing a wonderful job.

This week writing must take a back seat to presentation preparations. Today I have prepared slides for a presentation that I will be giving to visitors tomorrow morning and that I wasn’t asked to prepare until Sunday night. Next week I’m going to a conference where I will give an oral presentation for which I need to finish preparing sides and give a practice talk. It’s nice to take a break from literature reviewing and writing, but I am anxious to have a complete draft of my thesis read by my advisor before I must submit it to the entire committee.

My consolations and desolations are so intertwined at this point and work is nearly all consuming during the week. I need to restore some balance. The "work hard, play hard" mentality doesn't work well for me.

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Wishing you all a blessed week... good night.