letting things settle

this week was both awesome and messy.  coming down off the crohn's diagnosis and feeling under the weather, i found myself completely unable to do homework over the weekend, so i mostly just kept it low key, hung out with my husband, and read for pleasure.  it was a good weekend to do it -- since i had my group presentation on monday, i had read the readings in advance.  this was also the first year that i completely missed the ethnography forum.  i was pretty sad about it, but in hindsight, i'm really glad i didn't go.  i was simply not in the place to be around anyone, so i'm glad i listened to my body.

our presentation on monday went really well, and our professor and TA wrote to us afterwards with lots of positive feedback and enthusiasm about what we did.  this meant so much to me, especially coming from people i respect deeply.  plus, when you know you've worked hard and it is acknowledged, the rewards are that much greater.

on my dissertation proposal-writing timeline, i had planned to have a good chunk of my research design done this week.  however, it didn't happen, partly because i was wrapped up in processing my diagnosis and partly because i couldn't devote the mental energy to research design planning.  on wednesday, i was supposed to have a 2-pager written for my chair for our meeting, but i emailed her saying that i just hadn't been able to write it.  she suggested that if i found i still didn't have anything written by wednesday morning, we could just talk things out.  this felt strange to me because i'm used to having these polished pieces done, but our talk ended up being just the thing i needed.  first of all, it helped me to break out of the pattern of having a finished thing to present, and to just sit publicly with my questions and not-fully-formed ideas.  second, we had a really good conversation and it really helped me to get a better handle on my plans for my research design.  talking things out with my chair gave me an opportunity to ask questions and sort through my own thinking and confusion. it was great.

next week is spring break.  of course, i will still be at work everyday, but i'm planning on spending the rest of this week and the weekend reading for pleasure.  i won a book called "the gravity of birds" in a goodreads.com giveaway and i want to be prompt in reading and reviewing it.  i hope to be done by saturday night so that i can get back into my dissertation proposal-ing and other homework by sunday.