Visual prompt

I need to churn out a working draft of my dissertation proposal by April 26. I estimate that the working draft would have to be at least 50 pages long. Just the thought of that freaks me out. What do I look like? A writing machine?! And it’s not just me, but the rest of the students in the dissertation proposal seminar class as well. Or maybe not the rest of the class, but just those of us who are pro-procrastinators.

I have since changed the 2 to 3 on my sticky-note visual prompt, or maybe I should change it to 4…hmmm…sigh….

I find writing the first draft the hardest, and because it can be so aversive, I tend to put it off, which makes the situation worse because I end up not having time to turn the bad writings to something acceptable before I hand it in.

Self-monitoring of writing behavior (cummulative record):
1023 words (4 pages)

I met with my advisor today. It was time to register for next semester’s coursework. After 4 years of coursework, I’m totally done with classes. I’ll still, however, be taking 1 credit of independent study per semester to sort of maintain my grad student status.

This was an important meeting because I was going to ask her whether I could take one month off during the summer to go home. Here’s our conversation in a peanut shell:

Dr B: You do realize that I won’t be paying you during that 1 month break.
Me: OK (Thought bubble: I guess I can survive without that month’s pay; besides, going home is much much more important and reinforcing than that one month’s pay)

After some discussion about the best time for me to go…

Dr B: What am I thinking? You are already starving! Of course, I’ll pay you. You just have to work more when you get back.
Me: (Thought bubble: Yeah, what were you thinking? I am already being paid peanuts and you want to take those peanuts away from me!)

So, I’ll be flying back to Malaysia on May 31 and returning to the US on June 30. I managed to get Malaysia Airlines, which is great because they have tiny personal TV screens, and that is much needed for that 19 hours in the air.