From: dsmither@alfred.carleton.ca (Diane Smithers)
Subject: Re: Back To Work Angst
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:37:10 GMT

In <1993Jan5.194118.15142@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu (Paul Callahan) writes:

>For over a month now, I've been do nothing at all--nothing!--save spilling my 
>guts.  Not merely my guts, but my soul as well.  Not merely spilling, but 
>vomiting.  Vomiting guts and soul in a copious stream--no, a geyser!  That's 
>what I've been doing: vomiting guts and soul in a geyser that splashes 
>everywhere uncontrollably.  Some on alt.angst, some to my best friend over a 
>pitcher, some--the lion's share--to a couple of e-mail correspondents I met on 
>alt.angst.  It feels good.  I enjoy it.  It somehow makes me very sane, and 
>very secure.  I haven't felt this way in years.  I thought I had "grown up"
>and no longer needed this sort of catharsis.  I don't know if I'm ready to
>stop yet.

>But my workstation wasn't put on my desk for therapy.  My research assistantship
>is not intended to fund self-study.  I feel like a leech on society, a 
>pathetic creature without a backbone.  Will I ever feel like getting back to 
>work?  Can I fake it?  I'm waiting... waiting for a transition, waiting 
>for the old academic drive to come back.  

>Right now, the grad student in me is manned by a skeleton crew.

Ooo, does that ring bells for me.  I think I know too well what you
mean.  I've never posted here before (I've lurked a bit, happy to note
that counselling is not held up as the only solution to problems - not
that I have anything against counselling, mind you, I've been in
plenty), but I can't resist responding to this posting.

I'm a grad student in limbo as well.  And I haven't been able to
"produce" anything for almost a year.  I mean, that's not quite true,
I have rewritten my thesis proposal 3 times since last July.
I've had people tell me that I should just forget the stupid thing and get on
with my research, but I can't because I am doing interviews (I'm
in Sociology) and my proposal has to pass an ethics committee.  But I
just can't seem to get that drive for academic work back either.  Part
of it is that I'm in a very unsupportive academic environment, where
people don't really talk about their work (largely, I think, because
of practices of intellectual shaming and competitiveness that exist
everywhere but also because people just don't *talk* at all in this
place).  

But I will read other academic things unrelated to my substantive work
area, but not IN my area.  It's to the point where if I were reading
something and *realized* that it might be related to my work area, it
will panic me, or I will lose concentration or interest or whatever.  

I hope it passes soon.  I have also been being all cathartic for the
past couple of months, spilling out long-buried stuff I thought I had
got past or dealt with long ago.  It feels ok, I feel more 'in touch'
than ever before, some social skills and self-esteem that grad school
had all but extinguished seem to be returning.  HOwever, I still have
the problem of not being able to/ wanting to work.  All it takes
sometimes is the *thought* of thesis to deposit me on the couch for a
day or make my apartment ridiculously clean.  I am feeling better
lately in this city I moved to (Ottawa, Canada) to begin this degree
(that can only be referred to as the City That Fun Forgot), but
I still have this problem of not being able to work.

I have many other angst-issues in my life, but this one is perhaps the
most expensive, and is preventing me from escaping the ivory tower (at
least temporarily) and this city that I hate and getting a job that
isn't being a teaching assistant.

Diane Smithers