One Step Closer ...

As of 12:32 am, Thursday, April 3, I completed my first draft of my entire dissertation and it was sent off to my committee for review.

The word is ... "Hooray?"

That Word?

What's that word that describes an impending explosion in your head? It starts out maybe as a slight headache, a minor throbbing. Maybe there's a minor vertigo effect. Then it stops and you think you may be fine. But it starts up again. You feel your brain pulsating, pounding the walls of your skull. The pain intensifies to the point where you can't do anything.

What's that word?

I've got less than 10 hours before I finish my first complete draft of my dissertation. I still have to do some editing and grammar checks before I send it off. Come to think of it ... I just remembered I have to fix my conclusion now that a major portion of it went into the introduction.

Seriously, what's that word I'm looking for?

The Torture of Dissertating

I had set a goal of finishing my chapter 2 before the spring semester began because I thought it was the easiest one to do, but I ran into trouble. The obvious difficulty was revisiting something that I had written 3 years ago only to find that I don't agree with what I wrote. Of course, a newly revised and stronger argument that ties my research together changes everything that preceded it, but it's a chore, and somewhat embarrassing, to reread and revise old chapters and old thoughts. I am not throwing out everything, but I am trying to save as much as I can while incorporating my new argument. And that's where my problem lies. I was so excited to write my new section that when I came to my old chapter, I suddenly became myopic.

I tried to write.

And rewrite.

I tried to weave my new argument through the sections I wanted to save.

But it didn't look right.

My original chapter was 42 pages. 13 pages were discarded and a total of 8 new pages were written. It wasn't flowing as I thought it would and I was getting frustrated. The feeling was like jamming a square peg into a round hole. So I did what any good writer would do, and that is to ask another pair of eyes to take a look. I asked my partner to generally read over what I have thus far.

And that added another level of complexity. She does film studies. I'm in political science. She's properly trained in the humanities. Me? In the social sciences. She talks about the "state" in the abstract; I was specifically referring to the federal government. She points out that sexual orientation is already regulated as heteronormative, while I was talking about sexual orientation as an actionable classification (i.e., protected status). We were talking past each other before we finally figured out what was the problem. We are definitely products of our training even though we may use some of the same terms and objects of analysis, but we do talk about them in fairly distinct and different ways. So our remaining time was spent clarifying our terms and talking about what I wanted to do and how to go about it. We laughed in the end because even though both of us have a vested interest in cultural studies research, we are still very much situated in a mode of analysis that is central to our respective projects. I can imagine how a discussion like this could spiral out of control; it does raise an interesting question about interdisciplinarity that I was thinking about for some time now, but that's another post.

Despite the miscues, I decided to stop working on Chapter 2 and start from the very beginning with Chapter 1. In hindsight, I should've done that first since the introductory chapter will not only define the current state of the research (literature review), but also define my terms, the parameters of my research, and my argument so that all the subsequent chapters will fall into place. I thought I could knock out my chapter quickly since I had a fresh argument, but maybe as a productive mental exercise, and an act of prudence, I need to lay out the map of my dissertation first.

Back to the beginning I go then.

Where Did My Time Go?

Egads! It's July 16th! The latest movie installment of the Harry Potter series is definitely a hit. So is Talk to Me starring Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and so is the newly redone Transformers! And I'm back to writing again. With a little over two weeks left into the month, I have to crank out my conclusion before August rolls around and I have to make preparations for the new Fall semester. Once again, time is running out.

Finally! Now I'm Done!

Finished my final edits last night.

Printed a hard copy.

Went to Kinko's to xerox it.

Walked over to the Post Office and mailed the copy away.

Now what?

Oh yeah! A little free time to myself. Maybe go outside and embrace the first day of summer. Or maybe just recoup my lost sleep.

Still Waiting ...

Yep I'm still waiting on the last edit to be turned in before I do any real work on my chapter. I don't like to start mashing up my chapter until I read all the edits otherwise I could be working on a section that needs nothing further. In the meantime, I tried writing my conclusion, but nothing concrete. Just random thoughts but I think the general idea is about the relationship between the disciplines of cultural studies and political science on questions of law, state, and power.

I got an email from my committee chair indicating that she's excited to read my last chapter and is eagerly anticipating its arrival. But she also said that her time may be limited because of other professional and personal obligations.

Translated: Finish now or else.

The Continuing Saga of Being Done

Finished with my first round of edits and revisions. I still have to figure out decent titles for the chapter and subsections. I'm waiting on another set of draft revisions from a friend before I finalize it. I should be able to send it off by tomorrow or Thursday.

Done!

The first draft of my last chapter is done. Now I have to send it out to my friends first and go another round or two of edits and revisions for clarity before I send it to my committee.

*whew*

It's finally taking shape and I can see the end now.

Dissertating

Chapter Update: After a concerted effort this past week and a half, I think my chapter is 90% done, and if all goes well, I will meet my deadline. But there is a problem. There was one part of Justice Thomas's dissent about the phrase, "freedom from," reminded me of something I read from awhile ago. Instinctively, I knew it was enormously significant so I went about my library looking for the book, and my notes. The problem was that I couldn't figure out who wrote it. So I spent some hours browsing through the web -- Google Book -- until I finally found it. The book is Michael Clifford's Savage Identities: Political Genealogy After Foucault (2001).

And I lost that book this past year when I moved to Washington, DC.

Doesn't that suck?

12

12 more days to my deadline and I'm at the cusp of a foul mood. From now until the end of the month, I will be stressed out, overcaffeinated, sleep deprived, and if I was still smoking, I'll be a walking chimney.

Despite all of this, I found this quotation from Philip K. Dick oddly comforting.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
- Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Perpetually Dissertating

Every now and then I come across writing tips from various bloggers, writers, "how to's," and what not. Most of them seem to be common sense, and some are so vague that they are practically useless. But the one thing that does catch my eye is when the practice of writing is thought of as a ritual or routine. My dissertation advisor described writing like working out. You just have to integrate it with your daily routine. Like working out, there will be days that will be productive; and others that are not. Either way, it's the routine that is important.

Along that theme, I read something similar from Freelance Switch about a morning writing routine which seemed really insightful especially since I now have "a morning" to write now. But I refuse to wake up at 4:30am. That's way too early. =P

Create a Morning Writing Ritual
in Productivity by Leo

If you’re like most writers, you procrastinate. You have a hard time getting started writing, unless you’re seized by a burst of inspiration. Instead, you might do some “research” online, fiddle with your to-do list, or work on a number of other tasks instead of doing the writing you need to do.

If you’re having trouble getting your writing done, try creating a morning writing ritual. You can get a lot more done each day, as an early boost of productivity will spur further productivity throughout the day.

Why create a morning routine? A few reasons:

1. It gets your most important task out of the way. This assumes, of course, that your writing is your most important task, or at least one of them. But if it is, you don’t want to put off that task till later — do it first, and then you can check that off your list!

2. Stuff can get crazy later in the day. If you put your writing off until the afternoon or evening, other stuff will come up throughout the day that will interfere with your plans. And a lot of times, that stuff is urgent, pushing back your writing until the next day — when the process is repeated. Do it early, before the rest of the world gets in your way.

3. It’s peaceful. Mornings, for me, is the quietest time of the day. The kids aren’t up, there’s no hustle and bustle, the phone’s not ringing, the television’s not on. It’s just me and the cat. The sun is rising, and the day is new and beautiful. It’s the perfect time for great writing. Even if your morning writing ritual starts when you get in the office, it’s still the quietest time of the day for many offices. And quiet is good for writing.

4. You can relax later. Once you’ve got your writing done, you can goof off without guilt! Guilt-free goofing off is priceless.

5. Routines ensure that things get done. Without order is chaos. And while many of us writers enjoy chaos, it’s not always the most productive way of doing things. If you have a specific routine, with a specific order of doing things, and it becomes a habit, you know that what needs to get done will get done. It’s simple and effective.

So how do you create a morning writing ritual? Well, that’s different for each person, but here’s what works for me:

1. Prepare the night before. When you first wake up, you’re not always thinking right. Prepare for your morning writing ritual when your thinking is clear, in the evening, and your morning will start off so much better. How can you prepare? Get your writing tool out and ready to go — whether that’s your word processor (Google Docs for me) with your document open and ready to go, or your favorite writing pad and pen, have it out and set up. Next, clear away all distractions (this is a later step, but it’s good to get it ready now). Prepare the stuff for your coffee or tea, or whatever you like to have in the morning, so that it’s ready to go when you wake up. Anything else you can think of that you’ll need, get it ready. Also: know what you’re going to write, and have your pre-writing prep done as well.

2. Set a time to start. I like to wake up at 4:30 a.m. every morning, and get writing at 5:00 a.m. after getting my coffee ready, using the bathroom, eating some toast. But your wake-up time may be different. Whatever time you choose, set a fixed time to get started with your writing. Now when that time comes, brook no delay or excuses. Start on your writing right away. No excuses!

3. Get your coffee first. Before you start writing, it’s good to have an enjoyable morning beverage or snack, such as coffee or tea or toast or a bagel or a smoothie. Whatever you enjoy, have it right before you start writing. This will make the entire ritual an enjoyable one, and one that you look forward to each morning. Give yourself a reason to jump out of bed!

4. Don’t check email or RSS feeds. This is the biggest mistake many writers make. They check their email, or read their Google Reader or Bloglines. Even if you tell yourself it’s just for 10 minutes, you will get inevitably sucked into that hole of distraction and time-wasting from which no writer returns. Do not do this. Trust me. It has ruined many a productive day for me. Tell yourself that you cannot check email or feeds (or whatever your distraction of choice is) until you finish your writing (or at least 1 hour of writing). Seriously. Don’t do it.

5. Clear away all distractions. Related to the above, but clutter on your desk and your computer should be cleared off to remove any visual distractions. Turn off email notifications and the phone and anything else that might pull away your attention. I like to clear off my desk and I’ve removed everything from the walls that might distract me. Focus is key!

6. Just write. OK, you’ve got your coffee, you cleared away your distractions, and your writing time has come. It’s time to crank out the copy. If it helps, set a timer for 30 or 45 or 60 minutes, and try to write as much as possible during that time. You can do 30-10 intervals — 30 minutes of writing and 10 of break time (check email or walk around), followed by another 30-10 interval. Repeat as necessary. They key is to maintain focus — every time you feel pulled away from writing, stop, and pull yourself back. Just crank.

7. Celebrate when you’re done! Finished writing your piece or the chunk you wanted to write for today? Hooray! Now give yourself a reward. This should be a part of your ritual. The reward is the pleasurable ending, the completion of the sandwich, with the writing being the meat (or hummus or tofurkey, if you’re a vegetarian like I am). Sandwich your writing ritual in pleasure, and you’ll be more likely to do it every day.

8. Practice. This ritual will not become a habit right away. It will take focus and energy to do it at first, but after a fortnight or so, it should become an established routine and things should start to go smoothly. Ahhh! Productive and enjoyable writing!

Fujiya & Miyagi

During my break from my morning session of writing, I came across this music video that was mesmerizing. I can't tell if it's cgi, but it was pretty fun to look at with a cool beat. It was definitely a nice break.

And here is the rest of it.

Deadlines = Neurosis

I have two deadlines rapidly approaching -- one is self-imposed and arbitrary, the other can't be renegotiated. If I miss the latter one, then I lost an opportunity. The first deadline is my chapter and I told my advisor that I should have it for her review at the end of the month. That's 15 days from now. I'm almost done with the review of incitement and true threat jurisprudence, but I'm missing two very important sections: an analysis of Virginia v. Black case, and my own analysis of true threats, burning crosses, state power, and First Amendment protections. By the way, my current draft is already at 58 pages, so there's still quite a chunk to do before the end of the month, and already I'm entertaining the idea of pushing my deadline back another week.

"Must resist the thought!"

The second deadline is much later in July 15, 2007. That's close to two months from now which gives me some room to work, but the days can quickly turn into weeks and the next thing I know I'm out of time again.

The hard part about writing is organizing my time. I know writers who have multiple deadlines measured in terms of days (sometimes hours!), but can manage to meet them all so long as your time is managed correctly and efficiently. Of course, this is assuming you don't have writer's block, but even then, there are exercises for getting over that constraint. It also helps when you have little or no other obligations other than your writing. This is where my dissertation committee and many friends and colleagues rightfully warned me about the dangers of teaching: it is a time sink. Teaching will take up your time, time spent away from writing, and in the end, an unfinished dissertation is just that -- not finished.

[As I write this, I am also mindful that time spent here writing this post is also time spent away from my dissertation ... which is the initial reason why I started this blog (and numerous others), but I digress.]

I think that's why I've been fairly aggressive, even aloof and dismissive, at student requests for reviews of their final grades. I feel the pinch of the first deadline, and I need to be focused. I got my last paycheck, my job is done for the semester, and now I have to do my mine. After all, students are not the ones who will hire me. It's a committee of faculty and sometimes administrators. I can be accommodating and friendly to students all I want, but if I don't have those three extra letters after my name, then I will not get hired full-time. And I really don't want to be part-timing for the rest of my life.

As a result of my heightened anxiety due to my deadlines -- it may as well be neurosis -- I have to alter my writing schedule. I'm thinking of a 3 part split in the day: 3 hours in the morning, 3 hours in the afternoon, and 1 hour at night for a total of 7 hours per day. When I was teaching I could only spend, at best, 2-3 hours a day, 4 days a week, which is not much time so this schedule will be a substantial change. But between my time for writing, and time for everything else, I have to choose the former. It's the only way I can meet my deadlines, arbitrary or not.

Catching Up

With the end of the semester around the corner, I figure I should take care of some outstanding errands like a former student who asked me to read over a story she wrote awhile back. It's a wonderful story, but I still need to sharpen my comments.

As I sit and write on my laptop, CNN has a short special on "Asians in America" by Veronica De La Cruz. I forgot that May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

I dedicated almost 3 hours to writing my chapter yesterday, but I only produced one, maybe two pages to my chapter. Not so hot. I didn't have a writing block per se, but I think I got distracted with other tangents that was well beyond the parameters of the chapter. I got to stay focused.

The Last Week

It's Monday. I'm doing my usual thing of dragging myself out of the house and working at a cafe. My favorite cafe has been either Murky Cafe or EuroMarket. I think both are Korean owned. Murky has the best coffee around, while EuroMarket has a bit of everything - food, desserts, wines, etc. Both, however, have free wi-fi access, and that is a big plus for me! Anyways, for the first time in a long while, I really don't have to worry about what to do for lecture this week. Other than exams and their final grades, I will be free (!) ... to continue finishing my dissertation.

*sighs*

It's almost over. Last week, my dissertation advisor sent me an email with the subject line "Hi" and a very concise message that read: "How are you doing?" In other words ... when am I going to be done?

I wrote back giving her a summation of my chapter, the argument that I was working on, and a projected date of completion with a reasonable deadline for my conclusion. At the end of this month is when I should be done with this chapter, and a month afterwards to finish my conclusion. And definitely some more time with edits and revisions. Nothing is ever that simple from a dissertation advisor.

Holy crap I only have 3 weeks left to finish this chapter!

Twitter!

In an attempt to monitor my time better, and right now I'll use whatever gimmick I come across, I installed Twitter, a widget that provides up-to-date info. on my activities. so that everyone knows what I'm doing at that moment.

Dissertating

So I was reading another law review yesterday about Virginia v. Black (2003). Of the several dozen or so articles there were only one or two that moderately favored the decision. The rest simply attacked the decision as an attack on First Amendment protections. I don't know why. Maybe I just happened to pick up the negative ones, but there's very little praise for this decision.

Most had their own reasons for it centered around the general anxiety of waning First Amendment protections, or circumventions of Brandenburg, etc. I read this particular one and it started off with the usual critiques of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's opinion, the "puzzling" opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia in RAV which was revisited in Black.

On a side note, for some reason, and this one article was not the first, authors who wrote extensively about Black and RAV, talked about how the two statutes from Minnesota and Virginia were "nearly identical" or bore a "striking resemblance."

From St. Paul, MN, this is the city ordinance which was challenged in RAV v. St. Paul (1992):

Whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

And here is the Virginia statute:

It shall be unlawful for any person or persons, with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons, to burn, or cause to be burned, a cross on the property of another, a highway or other public place. Any person who shall violate any provision of this section shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony.

Any such burning of a cross shall be prima facie evidence of an intent to intimidate a person or group of persons.

Other than a cross burning as a common thread, and an effort to criminalize hate motivated expressive conduct, I don't see the "striking resemblance" or the "nearly identical" that I've been reading. If anything, there are substantial differences that sets the two apart in its content and application. I just couldn't help but think that these First Amendment purists were in a rush to substantiate their objections to Black and neglect the details. Anyways ...

So this one article was predictably arguing against Black and through it all I was trying to figure out where this author was going with her argument. Then it struck me near the very end about the "slippery slope" that the decision produced:

It is clear that the Nazi swastika is already the next form of symbolic expression on the chopping block. What about the use of confederate flags? What about shirts bearing only a picture of the confederate flag? Has the Court allowed states to restrict expression that society has come to regard with distaste?

Aha!

To answer the questions, I resoundingly say "Yes!" So start lining them up because it's clear minorities cannot always depend upon the good natures of people to know any better. If anything, state power has always been invoked to protect minorities and combat discrimination, and this is perfectly consonant with the history of civil rights.

The really sad irony is that oftentimes it was the state that had created these problems in the first place. And now the very instrument that perpetrated policies of segregation, colonization, race-based exclusion, and genocide, is also the same one that dismantles discrimination, and asserts justice and equality.

And on a final note, I'm getting sick and tired of reading so many First Amendment purists bemoaning the destruction of free speech, and therefore, the end of the so-called "free marketplace of ideas" and the vitality of democratic life and blah blah blah blah. Seriously, after reading the 16th article on the same theme and conclusion, but different method of course, it's like beating a dead horse ... like thousands of them!

*sighs*

Writing Fever

Like many friends I know, I was under pressure to finish and mail out a dozen fellowship applications. I get quite anxious over these things. It just needed to be postmarked but on February 1st, I was feverishly typing/editing away the night before, left early for Kinko's to make copies the next day, drove to the Post Office and waited in line -- fortunately it wasn't that long -- and made a frantic drive to campus in time for class. I could've done it after class, but I don't like carrying around these applications which includes my letter, abstract, dissertation prospectus, and cv. That's a heavy load to be hauling. Not only that, I needed some peace of mind knowing that my applications are off and away.

I have one more application due next week and it looks as though that will be it for this round of fellowships. It's extremely competitive and I know I should cast a wider net, but I did limit myself to mostly east coast schools. I didn't want to be that far away from home.

I'm making slow progress on my chapter. Working, even as a part-timer, does take quite a lot of time from the day. It may not look much but there have been plenty of moments when I thought to myself, "Where did the day go?" And then you fall asleep. We don't notice the passage of time, nor do we remember what exactly took so much of it in the first place. In the end, you just know that you do not have time to write.

A friend actually monitored all the activities she did in the day. It's a diary of your time. She had a large pad of paper and recorded the activity she was doing and how long it took. So for example, a typical day's recording looks something like this:

• Cooked/ate breakfast - 30 min.
• Answered emails - 60 min.
• Surfed the internet - 45 min.
• Cooked/ate lunch - 60 min.
• Bank/paid bills - 45 min.
• Drove to campus - 35 min.
• Lectured -120 min.
• Office Hours - 120 min.
• Drove home - 45 min. (rush hour)
• Cooked/ate dinner - 45 min.
• Watched TV (an episode of "Heroes") - 60 min.
• Dissertation writing - 30 min.

(This is not me by the way. But it looks rather familiar to my daily routine ... Fine! It does look like my average day!) Anyways, the point of doing this is to look at all the time that is spent on non-dissertation related activities. There's some activities like driving that cannot be negotiated especially if it's rush hour traffic. But there are others that could be cut down and the idea is to redivert that time to dissertation writing. I find it really useful and revealing to see how my day goes. You keep a daily log and review it to make sure you're keeping yourself accountable. In the end it's still about making time to write that gets the dissertation done.