WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
It's getting on toward exam time on many college campuses (final exams here start a week from today). And all over the country, students at all levels are beginning to cast anxious glances at the calendar as the dreaded season of finals looms once more on the horizon.
As a graduate student who's completed most of his coursework, I'm largely immune to exam panic. (And even if I weren't more or less done with the regular cycle of classes, I've been in school long enough that finals--and exams generally--are old hat.)
I'm living in a different exam hell: namely, the field examinations that, taken together, constitute my candidacy examination for the Ph.D. Fortunately for me, the history department moved away from actual exams at around the time I enrolled in the Ph.D. program. Now I have to write papers--which I'm pretty good at. I have the question for my first, and I've had a chance to speak with my examiner about what he's looking for. I've worked with him over the years on the reading list, and taken a number of classes with him, so I have a pretty good idea of what he's going to expect in this paper. I don't have to have a draft in to him until June.
So what's my problem?
Motivation, that's my problem. Sitting down and actually writing the bloody thing. I know (roughly) what I want to say. I have a pretty good idea of what sources will back up which arguments and buttress which points, and which sources need to be compared to and contrasted with which other sources.
I'm just having a hell of a time putting words on the screen. I can sit on dKos all weekend and type away, or fart around on Facebook, no problem. But when asked to pause, put fingers to keyboard, and seriously think and write, I find all manner of other things infinitely more interesting or preferable.
The thing is, I really want to get this paper done. So I can get on with getting on to the second one. And then the big finale, which will either be three more small-ish papers or one great big one. Because then I get to give an oral defense of all of them (assuming that none of my examiners wants me to make revisions to the papers, which is possible). If I pass the orals, then I'm effectively ABD (All But Dissertation, for those of you not familiar with the jargon; meaning that all I have to do is get my dissertation topic approved--which shouldn't be a problem, given that most of the department knows what I'm working on and everyone I've talked to about it is enthusiastic). Then I just have to go back to France for a while longer, finish up the research, write the thing and defend it, and then I can finally say I'm done with school--after more than thirty years spent sitting in classrooms.
That, I think, is a large part of the problem. I've been doing this too long, and just when I need motivation the most, it starts to lag for me. Doesn't help any that my job--which I love, and which pays my tuition, among other things--is getting busier and busier. There are family stresses, too, as parents get older and need more help. The last thing I want to do when I finally get home in the evening after a nine-hour day is to have to pick up another meaty 300-page book and analyze its contents, or to sit down and write up a paper analyzing that book and 25 or 30 others on a particular field of history. But that's what I've got to do--and I need to get moving on it if I want to finish this degree by the time in 2012 when my older classes start expiring. (Yes, Virginia, there is an expiration date to graduate classes!)
Further complicating the situation, it's playoff season for the National Hockey League. (That's a good thing. Really.) We've gone from a couple of games a week on Versus, a few games a week on Comcast (Go Hawks!), and maybe a game on NBC on every third Saturday to at least two games per night on Versus, a few games a week on Comcast, and at least one game every Saturday and every Sunday on NBC. That only poses a problem for me insofar as there really aren't enough hours in the day for me to watch all that hockey and get stuff done that needs doing. (I manage anyway, thanks to the wonder that is TiVo.)
My problem with the playoffs this year is that the coverage has been lousy. The Detroit Red Wings (Go Wings!), the defending Cup champions, swept the Columbus Blue Jackets in four games. I got to see none of them, because they weren't shown in my area. The Boston Bruins swept the Montréal Canadiens in four games. I got to see a grand total of one of them. The New Jersey Devils are up 3-2 on the Carolina Hurricanes. I've yet to see any of those games played.
I have, however, seen every excruciatingly dull moment of the Vancouver Canucks' four-game sweep of the Saint Louis Blues. I've at least had the opportunity to see every excruciating moment of the Anaheim Ducks' dissection of the San Jose Sharks, despite the fact that the Sharks won the President's Trophy this year for the highest point total in the NHL's regular season and the Ducks barely squeaked into the last playoff spot in the West. I haven't actually watched every minute of this series, since it's entirely played on the West Coast and I'm usually too tired to stay up and watch until 1:00 in the morning--not to mention how disappointed I am in how the Sharks have played thus far in the series. I usually wind up the next morning, fast-forwarding through whatever portion of the game I didn't watch the night before, so I know how it ended.
I understand that networks want to promote regional rivalries and all that. But this is the playoffs, for cryin' out loud. Show all of the series at least some of the time. And when you have a choice between covering a meaningless game that will only extend a series and one that could result in the exit of the losing team from the playoffs, how hard is it to realize that the latter is the one you should be broadcasting?
I seriously hope the NHL rethinks its contract with Versus when it expires in a year or two. And that they can manage to find a broadcast partner that (a) understands hockey--and hockey fans and (b) doesn't totally suck.
Those are my FPs today. What are yours?
Update [2009-4-25 20:37:45 by musing85]:: I see from another diary on the reclist that Bea Arthur has died. God be good to her.