First Conference Presentation as a Mrs.

I guess there's a first time for everything.

I'm in a major metropolitan city (where the pope just left from) for a conference from now until Sunday.  It hit me that this is the first time I've air traveled and will have conference presented under my new name.

Like, my first boarding pass as a Mrs. My first conference introduction as a Mrs.

I've decided to use my maiden name as my middle name professionally.  So, on my CV and papers and publications and whatnot, I'll be Firstname Maidenname Marriedname.  I like how it flows, truth be told.  I still haven't gotten any funny looks or comments about my new last name, though.  It absolutely screams Irishness.  Girl, how you get a St. Patrick's Day soundin name like that?

Can I admit something?  I am scared, I am uncomfortable, I feel inadequate, I feel underprepared, and I feel overwhelmed.  I can't explain how badly I want to stop feeling this way.  Everything seems to be screaming at me, You aren't ready!  You aren't good enough!  You're not going to finish in time!

I honestly don't know how I'm going to do it.  I don't know how this is going to happen.  There's more that I don't know than I do know at this point.  But what else can I do but keep putting one foot in front of the other?

The Internet Preachin TROOF Today

Am I in church?  I thought I was sequestered in a library carrel, tired, unmotivated, and unsuccessfully resisting urges to pro-crass-the-nation (I got that from my homegirl), but no.  The Don Miller blog and the Multicultural Listserv started preachin the Word of GAWD today and all I could do was shake my head like an old sanctified black lady who made some sweet potato pies for the silent auction muttering "My, my, my" with a hand held to my convicted heart and let dat troof settle into my soul.

Don Miller blog,"Why Change Can Be Good, Even When You're Not Ready":

Sometimes when we say, “I’m not ready,” what we really mean is that we’re not ready to succeed. And we’re probably right. But the new roles and opportunities that present themselves to us often won’t for us to be 100 percent ready to succeed. Rather, what we need in order to step across those thresholds is a readiness to struggle, learn, and grow. We’re not born ready to be successful professionals, spouses, parents, neighbors, and friends. We become those things over time, through practice and process, sometimes failing, sometimes winning, always persisting.

Preach.  Preaaaach!  Thankya Jesus.

Multicultural Listserv:

The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you didn't write.

Yaaaaas!  The devil IS a liya.

I am metaphorically forehead palming my dissertation and taking spiritual authority over it until it speaks in tongues right now.

After I take a nap, tho.  It is real out here, y'all.

Is this me?

Sometimes I don't believe this is really me.

Is this me?
Is this me who has a husband?
Is this me who's been married for four months now?
Is this me who's writing a dissertation?
Is this me who's supposed to graduate in May?
Is this me who's applying for jobs?
Is this me who's thinking about having a baby in the near future?

Sometimes I feel like I'm not really me.  I'm just someone who is passively observing what someone else who I'm not is supposed to be doing.

Like, when I was riding in the car with my husband back to our apartment tonight, I was spacing out (as I often do) and it occurred to me that the man sitting beside me promised to be with me for the rest of his life and that I promised to be with him for the rest of my life.  Lifelong promises, just like that.  There was a time when my life was without him in it.  Now, I have no idea what it would look like without him in it.  Riding in a silver Camry.

All that my mind is wrapped around is writing my dissertation.  It doesn't even seem like something I (if I were really me) would ever do.  But I'm miraculously doing it.  And not fast enough.

Is this me who wants to be a professor?
Is this me who wants a career in academia?

It seems like that's stuff for other people.  Other people do well-researched, serious stuff.  Stuff where they know just what they're doing and exactly what they're talking about and precisely what their plans are.  I just chance upon things.  I make it up as I go along.  It seems like I've lucked out more than diligently worked.  It seems like what I'm doing now isn't substantive.  That can't be true.  But it just feels like it.

What is it going to take to convince me that I'm going to be okay and that I must be doing something right?

My First Academic Publication as a Graduate Student

Hopefully this little guy will help me get one of those things.  You know, one of those whatchamacallits.  You know...one of those things productive citizens of society are supposed to have?  A, um...yeah, that's it.  A job.

Check it out here.  Especially if you're into diasporas and Africa and transformation and migration and stuff.

So...Week 4.

This is how it's going to have to be.

Writing a dissertation is seriously one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life.  Chapter 3 is due this coming Friday and I really need to pick up the pace.  For real.

On top of that, there's a little book review to revise and resubmit and there are already postdoc applications that are due soon.

I can't believe I've gotten this far with such reluctance to get things done.  Like, I'm the laziest "overachiever" there ever was.  I am so serious.  I've totally shut myself off of social media, I get up every morning at 5:45, I go work out, I get to the library between 8:00 and 8:15am, stay until 5pm, and I (try to) go to bed every night between 9:30 and 10:00pm.  I'm trying my best to regiment my life to allow writeyourdissertation to seep into my bones and consciousness, but still.  I still get super distracted (Pomodoro notwithstanding), I still stare at my cursor blinking for hours without any writing produced and I still question if I'm really cut out for this.

Whether I'm cut out for it or not, I'm going to finish.  I have to finish.  I have no choice.  I mean, I guess I do have a choice, but the consequences of not finishing are pretty darn undesirable.

This is just where I'm at.  In the thick of it.  This is all I'm going to be blogging about, probably, until it's done.  So...onward.