Postponing again

Most of you who read my blog know me IRL and know what I'm currently facing. But I'd swear my dissertation has got a curse on it. At first I picked a subject that just didn't work out, then suffered of loss of motivation and uncertainty about what to do with my thesis, and now when I was motivated and it seemed possible to finish it, I was diagnosed with something that is going to ruin my timetable once again. The doctor emphatically said the treatments are going to leave me exhausted and I should not try too much. Of course he is right and the top priority is now to get me back to shape, but although not normally tending towards fatalism, I cannot help thinking that I am not destined to get that PhD.

Needless to say, I also had to cancel the congress trip to London. It was not strictly forbidden, it would just be potentially very unwise. So far I need not give up teaching though, and I'm still hopeful that I will be able to do even the fieldwork part of the course in archaeological survey in May. 

Oh, well. This is just momentary self-pity, you understand. I'll try to keep working on the dissertation as much as I can, not to lose the touch again. And it will do me good to have something else to think than sickness and treatments. I am not going to turn this blog into a medical journal though, so I won't be writing a lot about that here. Let's just say I am in good hands and hope to be almost as good as new after all this is over.

Progress report II

I have started a number of posts on topical issues but not found the time to finish them in time, i.e. whatever I've been intending to comment on is long past before I'd manage to finish the post.

Nothing new. It seems the more work I do with the dissertation, the more there is still to be done. Lately I've been so stressed out that I don't sleep at night because of thinking of various things I should get done, including the big D of course. A somewhat useless state of affairs, since as a result I am too tired to do any thinking during the day.

Long time, no see.

I was in London on a strictly non-archaeological trip with the choir I sing in, and then travelled to Bristol to see an old friend from the time I studied in Leicester (we shared a house; she became a teacher). Well, we did go to Bath to see the Roman baths, so there was some archaeology included, but I was there as a tourist. And I had extremely good time!

The last week I spent with my family in our summer place (see earlier post about significant landscape). There is something very relaxing about starting the day by lighting a fire in the oven and working slowly through the day, whether in the garden or inside the house, without ever looking at the watch. A purifying experience, I'd say.

Needless to say, these activities have not been actually beneficial to my dissertation, although I am a great believer in the theory that human mind needs times when it is not doing anything much to be productive. However, I'm still waiting for that productive mode to set in. Meanwhile, I'm just feeling I'm a hopeless looser because I did not manage to write four articles within a year after all.

Next Saturday I'm off to Greece and fieldwork.