budding scholar

I’ve been thinking about seeing, but not really seeing things, how this can happen more in a city. The buildings are unchanging, and there are a lot of them, and I have somewhere to be. I’m lost in my head and my to-do list and worrying over my project. The other day I picked up my professor and her family at the airport, and one of the first things she said when we got into town was “I love all the wrought iron balconies”. And I said, “me  too”, and then thought to myself, “have I ever really noticed them?”. And I hadn’t. Not really. Today, I stood on a corner, looking up at the iron balconies of the building across the street above my metro stop. Really seeing them for the first time. How they stood out against the dull gray stone building. How they only started on the second or third floor level, above the trees. How different buildings swirl and wrap their iron in different ways. How my day, my project, my to-do list felt more tangible and possible once I forgot about it for a few moments.

What did you see, or (not) see, today?

I sit and work on interview questionnaires. Organizing categories of questions, writing an introduction, translating English to Spanish. I consider different ways of asking people about their work, their ideas about immigrant integration in schools.

And my mind races ahead. This should have been done a month ago. What’s it going to be like to ask real people these questions? What if I can’t find schools to do my research in? What if my project changes? What if my project stays the same? How will I ever publish anything? Who will support my work? And on. And on.

Why is it so difficult to be in the present moment in my work? To have this be all. The act of sitting at my desk, thinking about my research questions, and putting together questionnaires. Thinking about these ideas I’m so interested in. Learning how to do my own study, learning how the day to day of research feels. Why does my mind take me straight over a precipice of worry? Tumble over dreams of future work, far away people, someday family? Rush over stones of expectation and shoulds about how I spend my time?

Is this part of doing creative or original work? Part of using the mind for work? A rite of passage of graduate school? Or just human nature?

Looking ahead, the week is full. Work in the morning, snatches of time in the library, visits to Gaudi architecture with my parents, meals at home. Looking back, the weekend was fuller. Walks along harbors, roads, parks and waterfalls; a 90th birthday celebration.

My 700 words a day has been a challenge, made just 3 days of the goal so far. But I think of them as October practice. Now it’s really November, and a Monday, and I’m excited about keeping up the writing this month. I find there is rhythm and flow to writing with a goal of 700 words a day. So my next hour includes a warm cup of Chai tea and writing. And each morning this week will be the same.

Do you ever write with a goal in mind? What kind of goal works for you?

The application’s in! So it’s time to laugh at graduate work a little. Really, doing a Ph.D. is probably something like parenthood. You join this club, and suddenly all these things that used to make no sense feel like second nature. The most important thing? The dissertation. So I got a good laugh at these guys. And since I’ve put off having a family because of my work, I laughed at this comic too.

Now that I’m actually in Spain, starting my research, the whole process is starting to make sense and I feel like what I’m doing is worthwhile more often than not. But really, the amount of self-doubt and wallowing that happens in a Ph.D. program is astounding. Which is why a good laugh can really help things.

Where have you found a good laugh recently? While in Spain I’m missing my old standby of the Daily Show…

I am really asking myself this question. I always knew with the wedding trip and move to Barcelona that September was going to be a wash in terms of my project, but really–a full on bleached out starched and put away while I was sleeping wash? It’s now October first, it’s the first time in three weeks I’ve posted here, and I’m feeling like I need to put some serious effort into organizing my time and making myself a plan for the next nine months, beginning with October.

So that’s the plan for the day, organize my life, beginning with October. Luckily I’ve now got a desk to work at in our Barcelona apartment and I feel like I can wrap my head around what I’m doing for the first time in weeks. In fact, sitting at this desk, I feel *ready* to be productive, to write, to delve deeply into my ideas and schoolwork.

How do you recalibrate yourself, sit down and plan out your time, when you manage most of your time on your own? Any tips?

Yes, plain old walking. Up hills, into parks, to places with views and fresh air. Noticing flowers. Letting my mind wander. Walking always clears my head and gives me perspective on life. Especially if it’s exploring new places, or rediscovering old ones. In college I walked in the arboretum near campus, especially when I was working on papers. So I’m going to walk this month, every day if possible.

Another gray day, and I hunger for color. Magenta and papaya oranges like these flowers I saw on my walk yesterday. Color flowing like these balls of bouncing blue and red and yellow through the streets of San Francisco. The writing is flowing better, but I still wish for more ideas, for the work to come even a little easier. Even as I know that the real color won’t come until I’m on the ground, in Spain, talking to people and keeping fieldnotes every day. But there’s still this proposal to write, a milestone that our professors have set out for us to make sure we’re ready to make sense of the field once we get there. So I sit here, gray skies over browns and creams of San Francisco buildings, listening to this piano music, writing with the colors I have.

What inspires you in your work? Do you find that the weather affects your feelings about doing the work at hand?

A gentle evening summer breeze comes through the open window as I sit working late in Graduate Student Services, in Berkeley’s Doe Library. It’s re-discovering an old favorite. Finding true quiet that hums with productivity is harder than I’d have expected at Berkeley. The only sounds here are a train in the distance, sometimes the click of another student’s keys. I see people working on literature theses, their tables piled high with books.

Like views and breezes and humming productive silences, I have rediscovered language, nationalism and citizenship this week. The kind of belonging that is about not only passports, but civic duty and common social identity as well. Like a daffodil sprouting from an old bulb in spring, I hit upon a policy to use as an entry point for my study of immigrant integration in Spain, and the other pieces started growing into the beginnings of a real dissertation.

Now I hear a plane. The breeze gets cooler through the window but the late evening sun still comes warmly through the blinds in laticed stripes. I’m thinking about re-reading old writing, pulling and reshaping to fit it to the shape of my dissertation proposal.  I’m thinking about writing new sections. The pieces from orals and years of reading taking a new shape. And for the first time this dissertation proposal feels possible.

Found a great new place to write and study, in the main library in San Francisco. Beautiful light, fairly quiet, high above the city. A new favorite. Can see myself spending a lot of time here working on papers this summer.

Working hard to identify that center of gravity of my study. Had a brainwave in the shower yesterday (anyone else typically get ideas in the shower?). But then tried to explain it this morning and it came out all wrong. But I feel closer. A post soon with the new ideas.

Thinking about the future, how I’d like to be a professor, advise students, have my own research projects. Thinking about revising papers from journals, and having a regular writing schedule, and reading more. Orals are stressing me out to some degree but nothing like the feeling of what it will take to reach that future goal. I keep thinking about how I struggle with writing, and how much reading I’ve been doing for orals, and how both of these things–reading and writing–are the most central tasks of my craft. If I can master these two, having a regular reading and writing routine in my life, the rest of it (conferences,  teaching students, administrative duties in my department, writing grants…) sounds easy, fun, something to look forward to.

Battling against the feeling of being alone in the pursuit right now, with only my own time to manage. Of not always prioritizing things in the right way. Of putting off dealing with feedback on a paper and not yet having my dissertation prospectus written. I’ve got plenty of notes and ideas, but it feels like such a commitment to put it all in 7 pages for discussion during orals.

Wishing I had a writing buddy, someone who I consistently got together with and did the writing part of my day. Maybe this is something I can find in my friends at school. Or maybe even with my writer friends. The point is that we support each other in meeting our goal of writing consistently, not that we talk or be writing about anything that is similar. If you’re interested let’s talk!

For now back to the solitary writing, going to try and get a draft of the prospectus sketched out before sleep.