the grinding wheel
Oct. 2nd, 2013 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lotesseI need advice. I wish I had someone on faculty here that I could turn to, that I felt like I could be straight-up enough with, but I don't. So I'm turning to you guys.
This dissertation prospectus thing has been such a fucking nightmare - and I think one of the reasons is that I've been overreactive to faculty comments in terms of changing my topic. I've written up like six different projects and abandoned them. The situation as it stands now is this: I have 2/3rds of a prospectus written up about the problem of feminine sympathy and the Contagious Diseases Acts. Most of what I need to do is further primary research, pulling out some specific instances and quotes and things. My advisor likes it, because it's properly historicist - as soon as I mentioned the CD Acts in one of our meetings I could see him light up. I CAN execute the project - but I really don't want to. I just want to talk about books :(
I've done a lot of work on the sisters Brontë over the years, them being my favorites and all, and I have material on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Villette that could turn into chapters; I was also thinking about my Rochester-reading, picking at the bits of him that don't fit the Byronic mode. I'm sure I could find a fourth thing to work on there, probably Gondal to get Emily into the picture.
I WANT to write about the Brontës, but I also just want to get out of this hell already. Do I just need to suck it up and finish the CD Acts project and get myself the fuck out of grad school? It's been a month since I've worked on anything, recovering from the stupid unnecessary fiasco that was my August defense, and I think my internal anxiety about it all has been starting to ratchet up again. I feel guilty for not working.
(also they are STILL cutting down trees along the drive, and it's driving me mad.)
This dissertation prospectus thing has been such a fucking nightmare - and I think one of the reasons is that I've been overreactive to faculty comments in terms of changing my topic. I've written up like six different projects and abandoned them. The situation as it stands now is this: I have 2/3rds of a prospectus written up about the problem of feminine sympathy and the Contagious Diseases Acts. Most of what I need to do is further primary research, pulling out some specific instances and quotes and things. My advisor likes it, because it's properly historicist - as soon as I mentioned the CD Acts in one of our meetings I could see him light up. I CAN execute the project - but I really don't want to. I just want to talk about books :(
I've done a lot of work on the sisters Brontë over the years, them being my favorites and all, and I have material on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Villette that could turn into chapters; I was also thinking about my Rochester-reading, picking at the bits of him that don't fit the Byronic mode. I'm sure I could find a fourth thing to work on there, probably Gondal to get Emily into the picture.
I WANT to write about the Brontës, but I also just want to get out of this hell already. Do I just need to suck it up and finish the CD Acts project and get myself the fuck out of grad school? It's been a month since I've worked on anything, recovering from the stupid unnecessary fiasco that was my August defense, and I think my internal anxiety about it all has been starting to ratchet up again. I feel guilty for not working.
(also they are STILL cutting down trees along the drive, and it's driving me mad.)