Taking the Sunday Off

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In the month leading up to my A level exams, I had several months of vacation to study, revise and mentally prepare myself to write them. It was a lot of free, unregulated hours that I had to spend training myself to stay focused. To make a timetable, revision notes, strategies and manage myself in order to perform well on the exam.

It was, back then, one of the hardest things to do. Of course, a few months later this changed because then it was my exams which we were the hardest thing I had to do. During this, between writing the exams and preparing for them, I started a sister blog. It still exist on the blog-sphere but I don't post there as often. On that blog I documented my struggles and successes, sometimes I even used it to keep me accountable. I would think of a post related to the subject I was studying and it forced me to research the topic. By the end of it the blog helped me stay accountable and I considered the posts as a form of studying. Being productive if you like. 

Several years later, four perhaps, here I am weeks away from turning in my graduate thesis. Back in the same predicament. The circumstances are different because unfortunately I don't have an entire summer to finish it. Just a few weeks to wrap things up. Its not so bad. For the most part I have done my research and outlines. I just need to do the hard parts like writing it, organizing, making citations and the paperwork for turning it in. 

I've spent the past week finishing tasks one after the other. None of them were related to my thesis except one cab ride and one conversation. The cab ride I spent in conversation about an aspect of my thesis and the conversation, different from the one in the cab, was with my second reader about perspective and self-doubt. But for the most part I have been doing a whole lot of other side shows this week. Essentially being a busybody avoiding what is most important and looming over my head. 

Some small part of me had hope the weekend would be good to focus on my thesis. Put in concentrated and full attention on it. I was wrong. 

Come Saturday I was exhausted. I watched The Rocky Horror Picture at the Music Box instead. (more on that in another post). Then come Sunday I am wrecked. 

My brain is so tired. My body refuses to get out of bed and my mind just won't comply with any kind of attempt at school work. So I've taken the Sunday off. From emails, from texting, from instagram, from phone calls- everything. I have turned off any additional reminders of the stress and million other things I have to constantly keep attending to during the week. I just want my Sunday to breathe, clean, recharge. 

Its about to be 5 pm. I have watched three episodes of the Good Wife and eaten a delicious brunch. I've also managed to scribble some interesting work related thoughts as well. Overall the day has been really great in terms of stress levels. I think its dropping by a small amount. 

My strategy to make this drop significant will be, that in the next three weeks I am going to do a post a day about the progress I am making. A personal diary about graduate school kind of layout. I am hoping this will motivate me and get me to write more. I also enjoy looking back at written documenting of processes. It gets me fired up to do new projects. Just like it was the case with finding my sister blog. It sparked an idea and now I am convinced if I do the same now, I just might be able to make it to the finish line in this race. Wish me luck!

--xx---

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