Seeking Infinite Jest: My Road to the PhD: Recent Episodes
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I recently got a new job at a local bar. After defending my dissertation and graduating from my doctoral program, I spent months looking for work but learned the hard way how precarious it is to find employment when you have a PhD. Employees take a look at your resumé and wonder how someone with that much education is applying for entry level work. It was so discouraging, wondering if getting that degree was even worth it. I decided to find a job the old-fashioned way: get a stack of resumés and find whoever was hiring. With every business I went to, I decided to be upfront with them- I told them I recently completed my doctorate and plan on applying to academic jobs in the Fall, but I also need some kind of employment in the meantime. Some places told me immediately that they weren’t interested if I wasn’t planning on staying long term. Others saw my resumé, humored me, then showed me out. I ended up applying at a bar not far from me. The guy I spoke to was also really nice. When he called me later for an interview, I was so happy! I remember walking in for the interview, telling myself, This may be the closest thing you have to employment. Just breathe in, breath out, and you’ll be fine. We had the interview and a few days later, then he invited me to a working interview, where you work a shift to see how you would do. I think they really liked me- they offered me the job immediately after. It felt nice. I went home after, feeling a little more confident about my future and my job prospects.
Breathe In, Breathe Out….
I felt rejuvenated walking in to work, with hope and opportunity now at my fingertips. It was only a matter of time though before I began wrestling with my inner demons, wondering if this was the right move. According to me, my bartending days were over, in the rearview mirror of my academic trajectory. Somehow, I ended up taking a wrong turn, hydroplaning into a ditch. Is this regression? Am I Sisyphus, doomed to manual labor for the rest of my life? With every shift, I feel like I’m just barely crawling out of the ditch I crashed into, my breath taken out of me, in a car crash-induced daze, wondering what direction I need to be moving towards. It’s so easy to complain, until I remember life before this crash. When I come to, I remember how bad the job market was, and how close I was to impending emaciation, disappearing into the nothingness of life after a PhD. I walk into work, my hands intermittently balling into fists, jaw clenched, and tell myself, Breathe in, breathe out, and you’ll be fine. My interior monologue is good at dictating what I need to do at that moment so I can do my job well. Even behind the bar, my PhD days are still with me, reminding me that I am climbing towards something, however long it may take.
Breathe In, Breath Out…
What is work?
Each tick, I feel ascension
Every tock, gravity swats me down.
Every pulls every muscle in the directions
my job needs them to. I become an automaton,
serving one function, whichever one is immediately
in front of me. Room for thinking and
introspection is now filled with labor and the smells
of food and beverages. When I clock in, my manager
greets me with a smile as he flips the switch behind my ear.
There are voices, requests, dings, buzzing, none of
which asking me about my studies.
My smile is a mask, protecting guests from an
existential crisis, from me screaming underneath
as I tell them “Have a good night”.
I have dreams and ambitions. I want to change the world.
I want to improve the lives of others. I wish to pursue
the efforts of the artists and thinkers that came before
me. My body, heart, and soul are primed for them.
Another tock.
Breathe In, Breathe Ou-
-Did you give them dumplings?!?!
-Wait- what? What dumplings?
-That table! Did you give them dumplings?!
-Oh, yeah- they asked about their order, and…oh shit.
-Why didn’t you ask a manager?
-They just asked where their dumplings were. I didn’t think-
-You’re not here to think! You do your job, and if there’s a problem, you ask someone.
-But I can fix this!
-You didn’t. And now we just gave away food.
-(defeated sigh) I could have taken care of this problem…
-Your job consists of several tasks. You have no reason to do more than that. Focus on dishes and nothing else.
-(long pause) Okay. (our protagonist walks back to his station, pretending his feet don’t hurt after hours of running to tables collecting plates and wearing a fake smile)
Just breathe for now…
I’m beginning to see the flaw in this model.
What if this job takes me away from my original plan?
At home, I need to keep pursuing my goals, but if I’m
Not doing that, what’s the point? I’m not even sure if
There’s enough time in the day anymore.
This process is getting in the way of my dreams,
Obfuscating what I actually want. Am I doomed here?
Questions flood my head after every shift. I’m
Unraveling, at a job I don’t plan to keep.
It feels like I’m waiting for something
To get me out of here, someday at least.
Breathe In, Breath Out, And In Again
My weeks felt aimless. I pitched to various magazines with no success. Your Aunt Chana lent me another two hundred dollars; I burned it all on a scam bartending school. I delivered food for a small deli in Park Slope. In New York, everyone wanted to know your occupation. I told people I was “trying to be a writer”- from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me”
I believe with enough will and effort I can beat the odds. This isn’t just professional vanity. It’s a part of good medicine- from Atul Gawande’s “Complications”
Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete- from Paul Kalanithi’s “When Breath Becomes Air”
Start with what you want to achieve, instead of limiting yourself to what’s realistic or sustainable. Or, as I like to say, don’t ruin a story with the facts. Eventually, you’ll reverse engineer your great idea and figure out what’s possible and cost-effective and all the other boring grown-up stuff- from Will Guidara’s “Unreasonable Hospitality”
-The Minjin of the past accepted him for who he was, and the Minjin of the present accepted who he had been. Life felt as though it had come full circle.
The morning after they’d stayed up almost the whole night chatting, Sungchul, who had woken up earlier, shook him awake. When he opened his eyes blearily, Sungchul said, “I want to ask you something before I go”.
Minjun propped himself up.
“What?”
“What happened to the holes?”
“The holes?”
“Yeah, you said you made the buttons but were stuck because there were no holes. How is it now?”
Mijun shook his head, trying to chase away the sleepiness. He stared up at his friend, a thoughtful look on his face.
“Easy. I changed my shirt. This time, I cut the holes first before I made the buttons that fit. Now, the shirt is buttoned up nicely”- from Hwang Bo-Reum’s Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
I’ll stay for now. I need more time to think. About what I want to do, where I want to go. I want to take time and think about those things- from Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Breathe In, Breathe Out
The Perfect (Shift) Negroni
1 oz. Gin (Bombay Sapphire is my preference, Plymouth a close second)
1 oz. Sweet Vermouth (so long as it’s been chilled)
1 oz. Campari (a Negroni is not a “Negroni” without this)
Start by collecting all ingredients. The only you can reach them is to be scheduled to a shift working behind the bar. When you’re lucky enough to get that shift, gather all ingredients and pour them into your mixing glass via measurement. All of your prep tools are at your side because the person who worked before you arranged everything for you. Add ice to your mixing glass from your well. This is the most laborious part of your job. As you pour all ingredients in your glass and stir, reflect on how this is the best shift you’ve had in months. Look up at your guests to see the radiant glow from someone who pours their heart into what they do. As you serve, flash your guest a smile that says, This drink was made by someone who loves their job. Add orange garnish.
The Perfect Negroni
Breathe In, Breathe Out, then Close Your Eyes
It’s almost three in the morning, and I am so beat. I light a candle to help drift into sleep, reflecting on what is in front of me head bent in meditation like a praying mantis only to sift through so much noise the buzzing from my body after working ten hours on my feet and looming deadlines and reality in search for truth something my PhD program taught me through vigorous labor even when I enjoyed it negotiating with myself about what is possible versus what I want as I aspire to change the world and help others except I wonder how fleeting the odds of accomplishing that are even as I find the redeeming aspects of my new job after every shift every pat on the back every joke every $3 tip easing the weight of this labor on my body that makes staying here a little longer a little more okay a little bit more worth it in order to keep my dream alive helping others with my research returning their investment in me as an employee with a work ethic that drove all my other goals regardless of how menial it feels sometimes hoping to find the center of someone who is both all in and chasing aspirations wondering if that exists my body aches and all reminding me that time is another factor to consider. I blow out the candle. Sleep.
https://seekinginfinitejest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/a-beautiful-life.mp3(click here to play “A Beautiful Life” by Heartless Bastards)
Cats are natural companions for writers, not only because they’re relatively independent and undemanding of one’s attention—though there is that—but also because they tend to strike us as kindred spirits. Observers. Introverts. Always practicing their craft—only instead of wordsmithing, a cat’s craft happens to be hunting, and instead of word counts and margin scribbles, the cat’s main concerns are sparring, claw maintenance, and play-hunting: chasing shadows, leaves, laser pointers, and any other facsimile of prey. “The cat does not offer services,” William S. Burroughs wrote. “The cat offers itself.”- from The Half-Wild Muse: On Writers and Their Cats by Tim Weed
It’s Tuesday night, and I’m in typing on a keyboard while a cat nudges its head next to my leg. When you watch a cat, there’s something to envy. Their feet under their stomachs, posed like a loaf of bread. All of their worries flow off of their smoothed coats. Right now, I think about how they didn’t need a degree to have their expenses covered. Or how success can be found by catching a wild bird. I would love for all of my problems to be solved by catching a bird. Instead, I’m an academic. And right now, I’m on the job market.
After defending my dissertation, there’s very little left in the academic trajectory. You have commencement, your friends celebrate you, and you get to enjoy a life without deadlines. Unfortunately, that moment is then steamrolled by job prospects, bills, and figuring out where to go after a PhD. It’s a really strange question to ask, after finally completing something that consumed your life for the last several years. I’m now navigating the job market, and…..it’s not going well. There are not enough jobs, as well as too many jobs you’re overqualified for. You’re always wondering which path is the right one because your head is nowhere near where it used to be when you started this program. Some days, you’re not really looking for work, but just staring at your laptop, as all the “what-ifs”, all the “some days”, all the “would’ve/could’ve/should’ves” run through your mind.
That’s when the cats come in.
In the last several months, I’ve been asked to cat-sit a few times. I jump at the chance when people ask me. I’ve never been good at working from home, and I’m always looking for new writing spaces. When I cat-sit, it’s a perfect solution, mainly because, aside from feedings and cleaning up cat litter, the job really is all about presence. You stay in one spot and soon, the cat befriends you, and you end up spending hours doing nothing. Sometimes, you’ll watch TV, read a book, or spend hours on your phone, all with a cat next to you. They’re the opposite of a drinking buddy in the best way possible. I took these gigs because working on job application stuff needs little else besides blocks of time dedicated to writing. Sure, there’s the occasional pick-up-a-cat-off-from-my-laptop moment, but it’s way better than the million distractions I have when studying from home. In the last few months, I’ve applied to jobs that are either jobs I want or something adjacent. Every time I edited my application packet, I’d look at the cats I was watching, as if I was waiting for advice for this process. I got back nothing. It was perfect.
I’m currently at the state where I’ve both heard back from jobs and need to start planning for the next academic cycle. Every time I get back a response or send out a new application, I wonder if I’m doing something wrong or if this will be the job that determines the next step in my academic trajectory. I’m one rejection letter away from punching a hole through my laptop. When I feel like that, one of the cats will climb onto my keyboard to ground me, or look up at me with their saucer-wide eyes. Then I calm down, and I continue looking for jobs. Maybe this is where I need to be right now- in a calm space, focusing on finding work, surrounded by cats that are completely uninterested in entering academia.
To watch a cat is interesting- there are so many personalities and vibes you’re trying to get along with. Some of them seem friendly at first, until you move or say something in a way that they don’t like, then they complete seclude themselves from you. Some may not even like you before they get to know you, no matter how hard you try or how many fellowships you’ve been awarded. Sometimes, they’ll look at you as you try to get close to them, then give you the worst look of bemusement.
Sometimes, you’ll meet a cat for the first time, and you try, and try, and try, but nothing you do to try to get on their nice side works. Am I enough for this cat? What exactly does this cat need from me? You move closer, then they claw at you. It gets disheartening real fast.
The strange thing is that I’m really good with animals! I grew up in a house with all kinds of pets. In my family, I’m “the cat guy”. But then, you go into a house, and there’s no chance you’ll get close to this cat. Is there something wrong with this cat? Or maybe…I’m not as good of a cat-guy as I thought.
Sometimes, I’ll meet a cat, and getting to know them is so difficult, I feel completely dejected for even trying. There is no hope, and trying to get close to this cat will not happen. You get overwhelmed with a sense of rejection. What was I thinking?!?!! It makes you want to quit and never try again altogether.
I’ve also had a few cat-sitting gigs where I feel…stuck. Like, I can’t do anything besides this. I like being good at this job, but what would I do if I could do something else? Can I do something else? The cats can feel it when I think about this- I’ll start to question this career choice, then a cat jumps on my lap. It’s really hard not to be charmed by a cat.
There’s this expression that I understand but never use: there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Why would you want to skin a cat?!? But after a lot of cat-sitting jobs, it only takes one bad one to think, No, I would totally skin this cat if it was possible.
Just got another rejection letter. Here’s a picture of a cat:
I think the thing that keeps me at it is thinking about why I do this. Not just any person can do this cat-sitting thing. Sometimes, when a cat really likes me, it feels like I’m the only one who can do this job. It’s not that far off from the truth. I’m super qualified, and they find me charming. Those qualities really help with new jobs.
I’ve also met cats that, sure the first meeting didn’t go well, but I don’t think it’s all on the cat. Sometimes, the circumstances make it really hard for them to like you. Things are new and different, or you have a completely different personality from their owners, and it can sometimes freak them out. When that happens, it’s no ones fault. And you can’t be mad at them for that.
Being on good terms with a cat is a lengthy process. When they seem to like you, the process after can be lengthy. You are trying your hardest to be on their good side, but it’s impossible to know what they want. But then, they let you know they like you, and you go along for as long as they need you to. And I’m totally okay with that. I know what’s being asked of me now. All I have to do is deliver.
I think one reason why I keep coming back to these gigs is because it showcases something I’m good at. I like doing this job, and it’s such a heartwarming feeling when you sync well. Those times, it feels like you were born to do this job.
The more I do jobs like these, the more I’m encouraged to think about what I want to do. And why. I’m good at this, yeah, but more importantly, I want to help people. I want to make the world a little better than when I got here. With this job, it starts with cats. You’re nice to them, and the entire animal kingdom is grateful. It’s a nice feeling.
I’d do this job for free. And sometimes I do. But as a recent grad, it’s hard to do work for free right now. It’s hard to ignore the realities of this situation. I get teased about being so idealistic all the time, but I really do believe that if you do a work hard, and do a good job, taking care of cats, the universe finds a way of showing its gratitude. And people appreciate it. The world is a little nicer when animals like you. It makes the world feel a little more accessible.
I’m still at my desk, with the cats still nudging their heads on my leg. I have another twenty job postings to apply to. Under the “special skills” section of my resumé, I put “good with cats”. I have to hope job recruiters get what that means.
Acknowledgements: big thanks to the cats that allowed me to share their pictures: Dolly, O’Malley, JoeBob, and Oliver. They helped make navigating the academic job market a little less terrible. And to their owners, who gave me permission to share these portraits on my silly blog
(to read Last Call Part 1, click here)
Woodford Reserve Manhattan, the exact same drink I had last time I left a job I loved
I’m sitting at my favorite neighborhood bar, two days before my dissertation defense. This place came to me exactly when I needed it, about a week after I started my PhD program at OSU. Even the bar stool I sat at is still here, empty, but not lonely. I love how this place let’s you feel simultaneously lost and found. There’s a strong possibility I will have to say goodbye to this place, too.
In a little over 48 hours, I will be defending my dissertation, thus ending the chapter entitled “That time I got a PhD”. The more time passes, the stronger the gravity I’m feeling, collapsing my whole time here into mere moments. A lot has happened being here. I had an article published. One of my dogs and two of my cats died. I survived a pandemic, though not unscathed. I fell in love, fell out of love, fell in love again. I caught a bat flying in my apartment. I completed candidacy exams. I broke my first bone. I met people I would not have ever met if it wasn’t for this program. All of these things will soon become memories, ultimately fading away. I’m, like……really sad now. I knew this program had to end, but now I’m here, and everything in me refuses to accept it.
While I was writing my dissertation, I developed a habit- I would read a book that has nothing to do with my studies before starting the writing process. I read so many books. (read about that here) A few days before finishing my dissertation, I read Paul Coehlo’s The Archer. (also, no- I haven’t read The Alchemist) I really liked it. The prologue introduces you to the three main characters- Tetsuya, a master archer who has officially retired from his archery days; an up-and-coming archer who wishes to earn his title; a young boy, the curious observer, hoping to learn the ways of the bow and arrow. The whole book uses archery as a metaphor for life- how to hold a bow, what the act of aiming is, the song the arrow sings as it’s released. I’m at the point in my career where I feel like all of these characters blended together. I’ve officially mastered one sector within my academic field, hoping to become one of the giants I’m standing on the shoulders on, all while holding on to the idealistic, borderline-naïve, worldview that encouraged me to pursue this goal. I like feeling like an amalgam, not sure which I identify with the most at this moment. But, like all moments in life, this book has officially concluded.
I’m sitting at the bar, with my solemn face, and the bartender calls out to me, hoping to wipe my solemnity away like a beer stain. He sees me and offers me a shot of House Punch.
-Oh, I didn’t order this.
-No, it’s cool! We always make sure everyone here leaves happy. Even if you’re here by yourself.
Then it hits me…..
I’m not here by myself.
The lessons and material I learned here will be with me lifelong, as will the connections made. Nothing is actually ending. I will still be the precocious kid who is always asking questions. Only now, I’m way better at finding the answers. More importantly, this is not an end of anything. I will still always gravitate towards my passions. Only now, my politics shaped them to work towards social justice. The friends I made here are connections I have no intention letting go of. They will not disintegrate once I defend. Only now, they are now spread all over the country, even the world. It’s going to take work to keep these tethers in tact. Thankfully, this program taught me what happens when you work hard- it’s all worth it.
Like magic, this one song comes on the speakers. The last time I heard this song, I was taking a walk during my lunch break as I was juggling work with applying to PhD programs. The song “America” by Fear of Men plays.
Lie alone until the dark takes it all
Without a body I am free to dissolve
You became a part of me before I knew myself
You became a part of me before I knew myself
I think we need to rethink the way we think of endings. Unless we’re on our deathbeds, we’re not “at the end”. I’m just trying to find the right phrase to capture this feeling. One thing is ending, but it’s not the end. “A new chapter”? “A Bookend”? “Commencement”? I don’t know……
-LAST CALL!!!!! Last Call for Alcohol
That’s it! This is Last Call- time to close up my bar tab, call a Lyft, get ready to call it a night. I will be hungover tomorrow, but after some morning tea, a walk down my block, maybe some breakfast, I will be ready to take on this new day. Sure I’m tired and depleted of electrolytes, but I’m not dead. Tomorrow is here, ripe with opportunity. I will seize it. Like I did with this program, like I did when I began this whole adventure, like my dad did when he emigrated here. The day after my defense will be a new day. I am ready to embrace it.
Drifting out of reach
America, carry her away.
Drifting out of reach
America, carry her away.
https://sijrr214.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/fear-of-men-america.mp3(click here to listen to America by Fear of Men)
(read What Seeking Infinite Jest Means Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here)
Introduction:
https://sijrr214.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/onlymp3.to-the-rare-occasions-notion-co7t6nxsw-4-192k-1691261248.mp3(click here to listen to “Notion” by The Rare Occasions)
The words you are reading are those of someone in the middle of writing a dissertation. It’s an image that is so ephemeral, conjuring up so many different images for so many people. When I imagined what the dissertation meant while applying to PhD programs, I thought it was going to be this exciting period where I could show off my research skills and help humanity through the brilliant words pouring out of my fingers, like Indiana Jones, saving the world through his academic research. This feels more like work. A lot of work. The kind of work where you clock-in, meet your quota and deadlines, clock out, then wake up and do again, over and over. I was never a 9-5 person. l always thought of writing as this creature that needs to be free, that has the power to liberate you. Instead, I write every day, sunup to sundown, where my highlight of the week is on Tuesdays, when they serve peach-flavored iced tea at the coffee shop in the library. The monotony of it all embeds itself into your hands, to the point where you can see traces of the cog you’ve been pushing all day on your palms. There are some days that are good. Some days, you find the right words to the paragraph you’ve been struggling with for weeks. On other days, you find a source that makes the lightbulb in your brain go off, and then pages just churn themselves out. The writing I do with this blog is dedicated to the writing I can’t do in academia. I write what I feel. Today…I feel like venting. I want to pour my feelings out, bleeding all over this page. I sit down and do it, then that somehow also becomes work. Maybe venting isn’t the solution. I stop for a minute, mute all sound around me, and picture myself in a place where I can tap into what I’m feeling. I’m visualizing a park bench, reading, while the thoughts in my head are running on a low hum, operating on a feeling of gratitude. I’m about to complete my PhD from an R1 university, a position I’ve been aspiring to for years. I am so goddamn lucky to be here. And it doesn’t take long to remember how much work it took to get here.
walking on a Tuesday morning
Sometimes, when I’m writing, I’ll hit a wall, and no matter how hard I try, words stop flowing. It’s so hard to move forward, and so easy to give up. When that happens, I have to escape, even it’s only for a moment. Sometimes, I’ll stop, leave the library, and take a walk around the Oval, getting some sunlight, stretching my legs out. When I do this, this funny feeling comes through. My ideas start to get reorganized. That paragraph I was struggling with suddenly makes sense. It’s no park bench, but a much-needed calm sweeps over, making things clearer. So does my perspective. I get to really think about the work I’m doing and what got me to this point. My writing has improved dramatically since the start of my program. I can spend hours without breaks researching and writing. Some of that writing has even gone beyond the classroom, working with my community. And it’s not just book knowledge informing my writing. Teaching, volunteering, editing a magazine, organizing workshops and outreach. They’ve all contributed to the work I’m doing now. I’ve accumulated so many skills, the kind that transcend academia. Putting my body to work in my dad’s construction company; learning how to work with and talk to others while bartending; becoming versatile in the world of adjunct teaching. Yes, the dissertation is an accumulation of skills and knowledge, but those skills and that knowledge did not solely come from the classroom. I’m putting my heart and soul into my words, forming sentences with the precision of a sculptor. Editing also becomes writing. When I’m editing, the precision is even more intricate, looking at every mark, every gesture, down to the millimeter. I’m writing something that combines the push coming from my heart and soul with all of the knowledge I’ve gained during my program. My defense will be composed of questions about how I’m engaging with the body of knowledge my field consists of. Out of all of this, I will have written something I care about. It’s a luxury, paid for by the years of hard work, collaboration, and perseverance. My expression may not look like it, but I’m ecstatic just to be here.
Construction Days
https://sijrr214.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/onlymp3.to-glass__concrete___stone-d-vnf1ht_xm-192k-1689731136.mp3(click here to listen to “Glass, Concrete and Stone” by David Byrne)
It’s 6:30 in the morning. I’m awake, but my alarm has about an hour before it goes off. I take a shower, then brush my teeth. At the sight of my own face in the mirror, I begin to question everything. I’m on my way to the library, where I will sit in front of a computer for the next twelve hours to work on my dissertation. To me, “being a writer” used to mean living a world that exists on the margins of society, a kind of existence that transcends everyday realities. Years later, after completing my undergrad and Masters in English, I’ve come to see that writing is very much not that. It’s work. Work that you have to do every day, all the time, with no end. You sit at a chair and write words on the page…and that’s it. It’s a strange feeling, when the emotional spirit you have inside of you begins to harden as you learn about how things really work. I think about the writers I loved reading, wondering if they had moments like these in order to figure out how to write what they did. Some days, I’ll sit in the library and think, What if I just wrote a novel? Like…right now? What if I stopped this nonsense and just did the thing I quit a career for? That sounds so goddamn amazing right now. Do nothing but write for myself, crafting the sentences that move me, the writing I’ve been wanting to do since…ever. It takes one email from my advisor, or one friend asking me about my dissertation to bring my feet back down to earth and continue writing. It’s like I’m chained to my desk, with a pair of handcuffs I bring with me every morning. For now, I have a dissertation to write. Not only do I have a dissertation to write, but it’s my job to finish. My program is funding me to finish this thing. I was accepted into a PhD program, and completing my diss is part of the deal. I have to finish this thing. This needs to be my priority.
It feels so intimidating some days, looking at a blank Word doc, waiting for you to write two hundred pages worth of knowledge. All of this pressure makes you want to curl up into a ball, hoping that the writing will complete itself. The friends I have who have already completed theirs have all assured me that the writing does not nor will it ever magically appear on the page. You have to do the work. However many pages and citations are required, however many times you have to write, draft, start over, they all have to be completed. By you. Somehow, it has to be done. So how do I do this? What’s the secret to writing a dissertation? Honestly…no one knows. Some people can crank out tons of pages, then get lost in the editing and citation process; others find a groove, then find a wall, and crash, the kind of crashing reserved for crash test dummies. I think about getting my work done in my program in first years, spending 12 hour stretches of reading in the library, with only a Coke and a bag of beef jerky to get me through the day. I treated it like a job- I would walk in the library, like I was clocking in for a shift at a factory. I did my hours, then would leave the library after the sun went down, leaving my bag in my locker, and my day behind me.
Maybe that’s the secret…or, my secret. When I treat writing like work, it may feel overwhelming and laborious, but it gets done. There’s something comforting about that kind of structure. When I was in high school, I would work with my dad in his construction company, where he specialized in masonry and concrete work. Every morning, we’d leave the house at 6:30am to beat the 405 traffic, get to the job site, and work. On a lot of days, the mornings would start with prepping an area for pouring concrete or getting materials to do brickwork. We’d spend hours digging, making trenches for the foundation the concrete will need, or shovel sand and cement mix to make the mortar for the bricks we would later shape into planters or walkways. Digging for hours under the sun is brutal, the sun beating down on you, hot sweat blinding your eyes. And you don’t just “dig”. The work has to be precise, down to the inch. And you have to be careful not to hit a water line, and you can’t afford to lose time if a tree root is obstructing where you need to dig. Just cut right through with a shovel, or pray you didn’t forget to bring an ax to work that morning. There are other days when you are waiting for the cement truck. You can’t do anything until it gets there, but you don’t want to be idle, so you clean or do something. Then the truck gets there, and then the work starts. Everyone has a job, and everyone is relying on you to do your job, because if you don’t, you can derail the whole process. It’s hundreds of square yards of concrete pouring out of a hose. When we did that, my job was using a claw hammer to lift the rebar when the concrete is poured to get it four inches off of the ground. It’s a state law that you have that reinforcement.
The crossover between working with my dad and working on my diss becomes more and more apparent when I think about getting work done. One summer, my dad and I worked a house in Santa Monica. They wanted a small brick wall with iron fencing, a new irrigation system, and pavers on the side of the house and outside wall. This is work my dad and I have done so many times, but when we got to the house, several months of work hit me in an instant. The house was still being built! It was practically only a frame of a house, a three story, four bed/three bath house in Santa Monica. And it was huge. It’s the kind of house you can only aspire to own instead of actually buying someday. We installed the irrigation system and built a small block wall around the house, about three feet tall with a white picket fence. When the house got its siding, my dad and I moved in with the pavers. (pavers are artificial stones that people add to the sides of houses and buildings to give it an old-fashioned look. with the right color scheme, it can look really nice! [but not a lot of people know what a good color scheme is]). We had to install pavers on the pillars on the walls in the back of the house and up the chimney. This job consisted of my dad and me doing one job every day for two months straight. My job was to clean the edges of each paver and put together a pile of them that will cover the next hundred square feet of wall, and every now and then, I’d have to make thin-set, the mortar used to stick pavers on to the walls. My dad’s job was to grab each paver and stick it on the wall. This job is way more difficult because my dad is figuring out the pattern he’s on while planning the next row. Row after row after row. It’s manual labor and on-your-feet thinking. It’s really hard. When I would make the thin-set, sometimes closing my eyes would make the job easier. I got so good at staying in motion, that I no longer needed to interact with anyone to do my job. At about a quarter of the way through, I just stopped caring about anything. This job needed me to shut down everything and focus on this one thing. I didn’t go out with friends, or think about what life will look like after this job is done. It was a kind of intellectual tunnel vision. It freaked me out for a second. One day melted into several weeks. You just…stop caring. One day, I gave my dad a paver, but not only did it not fit, but it almost ruined the remainder of the job. He yelled at me so freaking badly. My soul left my body for a second. When it did, I was able to see me at my most vulnerable. I soon had to learn that every motion has the potential to either derail the job or nail the execution. I have two options in front of me: do it well or leave. I stayed. And I stopped seeing my dad as “my dad”; when we were at work, he was my employer, and I had to do what he said. One row after the other, one week after another, then the wall was finished. I remember standing on the scaffold as my dad put the last paver in, completely forgetting about being three stories off the ground. The job was done. A job I thought would never be completed, and one that required me to convince myself that I can accomplish several times throughout the process. I had no idea how the hell it would get done. And then it was done.
When I have days when writing my diss is the only thing I have to do, I start my routine: I get to campus, pick up an iced tea, get my bag and books from my locker, grab a seat at the reading room, then sit in the same seat for the next twelve hours. I also added this thing to my routine where I would read something that had nothing to do with my research for an hour before writing. It felt like my brain was going to the gym before working. (I got really into Haruki Murakami after watching the movie Drive My Car, reading his books throughout the diss writing process. wrote a whole blog post about it, too- read about that here) After that, I’d take a walk around the Oval, then sit back down and write. The writing gets done when I do that. Sentences sound crisp, the paragraph development is tight, and I was using my sources like arrows hitting their targets, going exactly where they need to. There are days where writing one paragraph feels like an accomplishment. Then there are days where that one paragraph paved the way for the next ten pages, and they just pour out. I found my routine and stuck with it. Sometimes, people join me, and other times, I can go a whole day without speaking to someone. It’s jarring and exciting and exhausting and harmonious. On days when writing is getting done, I can feel my hands doing what they’ve been primed to do, going all the way back to those construction days. When that happens, words are like those pavers, and soon, I will have built a beautiful looking house. At some point, I’ll put the last paver on, stand back, crack open a beer, and say, Yup….it’s done.
Bartending Days
https://sijrr214.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/onlymp3.to-the-marias-carino-myvaakfyg2i-192k-1693865642.mp3(click here to listen to “Carińo” by The Marias)
The cool part about studying something so interdisciplinary is that you reach so many fields and people. Thanks to studying medical humanities, I get to work with a lot of people my undergrad experience didn’t have room for. I’ve taken classes outside of my department, I’ve worked with people who study medicine as well as teach it, and last year, I got to volunteer at a hospital. This approach made me really appreciate what it means to collaborate with others. All of this starts with a really simple gesture: reaching out to others. My studies have taken me to so many new spaces, going to conferences out of state and attending online workshops. I got really good at talking to other academics attending such events. A pleasant experience at these places is when you talk to someone and they really tune in to what you’re saying. What’s even more rewarding is when you talk to someone, and then they tell you about their background and interests and soon, the two of you see how they’re organically connected. Reaching out and talking to others is essential. For grad students, that includes joining groups and committees, getting along with your cohort, and sometimes even your students. Being personable and conversing with others is beneficial for everyone, especially in a place where, if you let it, it can feel like the loneliest space in the world.
I owe a lot to a job I had during my undergrad days when it comes to socializing and learning how to reach out to others. When I found my passion for writing, it came from a place where I was able to embrace my voice. Before getting to this point, the jobs I had were tied to physical labor. Work was a physically demanding experience, whether it was working with my dad, pouring concrete, or what was to become my now-former career, working as a mechanic. Your bodily output is what earned your paycheck. There was no room for my voice, and no one was interested in it. I left all of that behind to find my voice, and after a lot of night-classes, reading books I’ve always heard of but never read, and thinking hard about what kind of writer I want to be, I was finding it. I became a full-time student, taking classes at a community college, then transferred to a university. I was on the road to liberating my consciousness. It felt good. While this sounds inspiring, I started to learn that this works when it comes to the written word. When it came actually talking to others, I had way more to learn. I never considered myself an extrovert, and always had an awkward way of sharing what I thought. I was so awkward, never saying the right thing when I needed to, or somehow finding the wrong thing to say at the right time. Kinda like my experience with my dad, I ended up getting a job that forced me to learn how to hone a new skillset. I got a job at a restaurant as a barista, which included working a counter and serving customers. Besides a few catering gigs I did with my brother for extra cash a few years back, I had no experience in this industry. It’s a crazy world, one with its own language, rhythm, and ethics. I had to learn so much on the fly. (the phrase “on the fly” is also one that comes from that industry) Serving people meant encounters with strangers and tending to their needs, trying to figure out how to make their experience a good one. I started to see where the stereotypes about bartenders and waitresses came from. You have to be smart, charming, witty, and a little cute. Why? Because your income is based on tips. If you don’t have those qualities, your income suffers. I did what writers do best to pick up these tricks- I observed. Every shift I worked, I learned a little bit more, to the point where I got really good at it. I started making more money, and serving people became a symbiotic experience. I was in a place where sharing my words was not only what I was supposed to do, but by doing so, I became more confident in myself.
Several years later, after working as a barista, then moving up to a server, then a barback, I was finally slinging drinks at multiple bars. The real trick about bartending is not about being charming; it’s how to think on your feet. You have to take multiple orders at time, keeping track of tabs and credit cards, listen to others, all while keeping a warm approachability and a look on your face that says, “I’m happy to help”. When you get really good at this job, you develop your own persona. There’s the flare bartender, the one who loves his job (a little too much); the sly bartender, the one who will serve you a drink with a smile that can make you melt; the pumped-up bartender, the one who woke up that morning ready to start a party; and the cool bartender, the one who doesn’t say much but puts out a vibe that makes you want to be their best friend. For me, I was able to meld my passion for learning and literature with drinking; I was the storyteller, the one who can serve you a drink with a story on the side. Customers loved these stories, most running no longer than about twelve seconds. A good bartender plays one of these roles well; a great bartender can play whichever one the customer needs that shift. I was all of these in one night, all while tending to ten orders at a time, my hands always in motion, on my feet for up to twelve hours straight. Whatever brought you to the bar that night, I was able to spot it, match the drink for it, and serve it to you with a side of wisdom. It was a cool thing to be good at, and I was really good at it.
If it wasn’t for getting so good at being social, I wouldn’t have made it through my program. After talking to people who were already in PhD programs, I knew how valuable a circle of support was. One group of friends I made was out of a lot of luck. The cohort I joined was made up of so many people, with so many different backgrounds and interests. But the thing we all had in common was getting really good at caring about one-another. We all looked out for everyone, making sure everyone was doing well in their coursework, and catching them when one of us fell. We organized small get-togethers and group events. Out of this came out an amazing safety net of support. I can call on these people today and know that I will get the help I need. We named our group #bestcohortever. (it’s a real thing, too! find us on Instagram) I was really fortunate to be a part of this group, but then I remembered something someone told me about grad school life. One of the first pieces of advice I got before starting my program was to make friends outside of my cohort. I didn’t understand this at first, but after a month of being a grad student, it made so much sense. Some days, you want to be around friends where how you are doing in your classes is not the only thing you talk about. Being sociable made it possible to do that, too. I met a group of friends I affectionately called “My Dance Friends”. This name came after making a friend in the dance department, then meeting other friends through this person also in the dance department. Even in the hardest months of COVID, we stuck together, having virtual potlucks, and staying in touch via hour-long phone calls. Several months ago, I hosted a Potluck at my party, with a theme entitled “Community Charcuterie”, where everyone brought something to add to a charcuterie board. It was beautiful, seeing a collage of all of the people I’ve come to know, assembled on one board via food. #bestcohortever was there, my Dance Friends were there, and other friends I’ve made along the way were there. My heart was full, my stomach had amazing food, but my favorite part was playing bartender one more time. While everyone brought over food, I made drinks from the home bar I started, and it included everything needed to make really good cocktails. Shaker, strainer, bar spoon, mixing glass, and those really good black cherries. I wasn’t keeping track of tabs, and there were no rowdy customers. Instead, everyone had a drink in their hand, handcrafted by me. The end of that night left me with that one feeling that is so rare and so precious: I am nailing grad school.
Charcuterie Community board
Being social is so essential for my mental health, and I’m glad I picked up these skills to help make grad school a little easier. Near the tail-end of my program however, I was taught one more lesson about how valuable those skills are. In my last year of my program, I decided to volunteer at a hospital that recently reopened their volunteer program. I was volunteering at The James, the oncology center at OSU Medical. (wrote about that earlier, too- read about that experience here) I didn’t know what to expect since I had no experience working at a medical center. I volunteered because as a medical humanities student, one who has studied everything about the topic from books, I felt that I had to have some kind of experience in a clinical setting. It took one shift to learn how important it is to be able to talk to others and being personable. People walk into that center during what will most likely be the most stressful experience of their lives. Here, they don’t need jokes, or charm; they need someone that can tend to their wellness. That sometimes means putting a hand on their shoulder when you offer them help; sometimes, that means taking in all of their emotions as they share the most tragic medical histories; or sometimes, that means shutting up and giving them exactly what they ask for. It was a jarring experience at first, feeling so conflicted about being there in the first place. But then, a patient would share something with you, or make that tiny gesture that tells you why treating someone’s wellness is (sometimes) just as important as treating their illness, and then you see that just wanting to help someone is all you need to be good at your job. I learned all about this in medical humanities textbooks, but I got to experience it here. I could not have done my job well if it weren’t for the social skills I learned while bartending. It’s kinda funny- working in bars, a job I got for the sole purpose of making extra cash on the weekends, ended up playing such an important role in my experience during my grad program at OSU. It’s a happy accident, like when the first Negroni came from a guy who wanted to make an Americano accidentally poured in gin instead of soda water. I now feel comfortable reaching out to others to collaborate, or talk about my struggles and how I’m feeling, or just starting a conversation with someone waiting for the elevator. My friends, my experiences, seeing them in practice, Negronis. I’m grateful for all of it.
Adjuncting Days
https://sijrr214.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/onlymp3.to-r.e.m-half-a-world-away-bn4pbpsbqgc-192k-1693935349.mp3(click here to listen to “Half a World Away” by REM)
Sometimes, when people ask me about how diss writing is going, a jumble of words just falls out of my mouth. I have no idea how to describe how I’m feeling when my job is to write sentences. When I’m talking to people who are in the same position, or who have already crossed that finish line, I always hear the following phrase at least once. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint”. This sentiment isn’t inaccurate or misplaced. The problem is that I am so in the thick of writing, that a marathon doesn’t encapsulate it. It’s like I’m standing right in front of Mount Everest, and my committee is telling me, “It’s your turn to climb this”. When you stand there, this voice begins to tell you, “You can quit if you want. Like,…right now. Just walk away and no one would blame you”. The worst part is that when you’re in a PhD program, this is practical advice. Before I started my program, another piece of advice I got from people who were in a program was that this is not the same thing as dropping out of high school- if you want to quit, you can do that. It offended me hearing that, like they were presuming I was going to fail or something, but the longer I stayed in this program, the more it made sense. Ever since the start of my program, the amount of work demanded of us is so much, borderline-unreasonable. The amount of reading, the length of term papers, juggling being a student with being a teacher, studying for candidacy exams that take a year’s worth of reading, and the diss. It’s a lot. Cards on the table: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it. I once had an assignment that was supposed to take a couple of weeks that stretched out into six months. My logic was, if I can’t complete this, how will I be able to complete anything else down the road? I think about standing at the foot of Mount Everest again, and what that feels like. When I envision it, I think about how much I’m going to put my body through and how doing this makes any sense. But then it hits me- I didn’t decide to do this this morning. It’s been a goal I’ve had for a long time, and I conquered all of the little mountains that came before me. I got my climbing boots on, my rock climbing hammer, my protein bars, my phone, fully charged, and my headphones for music. I can do this. I was made for it.
Perseverance is something I’ve picked up from all of the jobs I’ve had. All of them had their own little challenges. The period after finishing my Masters and getting into my PhD program was all about perseverance. And it wasn’t like one of those messages of inspiration you hear at a gym or in an office; it was more like a working-class way of learning it, the kind where you learn it because you have no other options. When I completed my Masters, I worked as a part-time instructor, often called “adjuncting”. (wrote about that as well. if you wish to learn about the exploitative nature of that job and why we need systemic change, you can [begrudgingly] learn about it here) My goal was to do that while applying to programs, teaching Freshman comp while spending the weekends working on my applications. As I describe this, it sounds perfectly reasonable and doable. Tapping into the feelings I felt during that time, it was very much not that. I was working so many hours per week, making no money, all while trying to convince myself a PhD is still attainable. Application fees are almost a hundred bucks a pop, and GRE exam fees, if you take both the General and Subject, which I did, adds up to almost four hundred. I couldn’t apply the first Fall as an adjunct. It wasn’t possible. My dreams were fleeting, making me wonder what the next few years would look like. When Spring came around, I got a new job at a community college (yay!!) and was able to really get to work on applications. I studied, did research on the schools I wanted to attend, and took the GREs. I proudly sent out my applications, telling everyone how we’re going to celebrate once I get the news. Then they all came back. For the next several weeks, I would go to campus, with my lesson plans ready, and a look on my face that showed everyone how much I loved teaching. What they didn’t see is the look of a person who was so defeated on the inside. I got nothing but rejections that application cycle. Everything shut down for me. This one goal I had has now become unreachable. I was going through this, and I had to keep teaching, at a job that demands so much yet pays so little. I was climbing, then the mountain spit me out, back to sea level. How do you continue with your day when the world tells you your dreams are impossible? This is where perseverance kicks in.
A lot of people who I spoke to about this reminded me that it’s fairly common to not get accepted into a PhD program on their first round. After a few weeks of being sad and listening to sad music on endless loops, I decided to reapply and try again. But I needed to be smart about it. What could I have done differently? What is within my control to change? I reached out to some of the schools I applied to, and some of them got back to me, giving me really productive feedback. My Letter of Recommendation writers warmly told me that them getting back to me was a sign that says I was on the margins of getting accepted or not. One thing I needed to change and was very much in my power was improving my GRE scores. It made sense because that test has always been my Achilles heel. I studied for days straight, taking practice exams, working on my GRE vocabulary, studying on the train ride home after a long day of teaching. I was adroitly on it, my goals inchoate. (see?!?! studying GRE vocabulary paid off!!) I paid for the exam, set a date, and retook it. When I finished this one, I saw my score after, and then the earth cracked open beneath me, dropping me into the deepest pit of the planet. I bombed that test. So. Badly. I wasn’t even at sea level anymore. Somehow, the mountain hired friends to dig a hole and throw me in, miles below surface level. I worked so hard, and it added up to nothing. I could have given up right then, coming to grips with my situation and settling for a more attainable goal. I could find different job, one that I’m qualified for, and live comfortably, on a plateau instead of a mountain. It would have been so easy to do that. There was so much work to do just to get back to sea level. I had no idea how to get out of this hole, and I soon started to question why get out at all.
I was facing another year of wearing a fake smile at my job. Going to work, hanging out with friends, doing anything fun- it all seemed so bleak and pointless, like a grey filter was put over my life. I thought a lot about what was in front of me again, and, again, I asked what was in my control. The answer was…very little. I can’t change my academic history, I can’t add anything to my CV or application essays that will make me a more qualified candidate. All I had was this terrible and exploitative job. That semester, I walked into my classes and looked closer at my students. They served no role in my bleakness and all wanted what I did when I was in their position. They deserve a teacher that wants to be there as much as they want to learn. This was something I could control. I wasn’t expecting any rejection letters since I didn’t apply in the first place. Instead, I threw myself into my work. I worked closely with my students to help them reach their goals. I began working at the Writing Center on campus, leading workshops and offering to substitute classes. I volunteered to help rewrite the Course Learning Objectives for the Bible as Literature class. It was a ton of work, and half of these things, I was learning on the fly. But I also had purpose. Every side gig or job I picked up reminded me why education is so important. It empowers. It liberates. It gets you a little closer to whatever goals you have. This is when perseverance began running through my veins. Perseverance is something you gain, and often not by choice. You have to give it to yourself…because no one else will. I started to care again. About my job, about teaching, about myself. It was the fuel I needed to power through this new year. The summer began to roll though as the semester was ending. I had time to now ask myself, What do I want? I honestly didn’t know. But whatever it was, I had to find it.
When summer rolled around, I was still teaching, but the nice thing about my job was that I only had to teach one out of the two sections of summer classes to get paid for all of it. With this break, I decided to attend the Graphic Medicine conference. Attending this offered me a slice of time where I got to feel like a student again. Plus, the people in this field are really good people. It was held in Seattle, a place I once studied a couple of years back. (wrote a whole blog post about that, as well! read that one here) Attending this reminded me why my studies matter, and why pursuing this is in my bones. My goals felt attainable again. Thanks to that conference, my vocabulary on the subject grew exponentially. Before, I had the ideas, and I had the heart, and now I have the words. Application season came by again and I wanted to try one more time. While working on applications, I also had a really hectic schedule. Thanks to being scrappy, working a job with terrible pay, I found the time I needed to work on applications outside of work. One night, as I was drafting my SOP essays, I sat down and decided not to leave my seat until I had something I liked. Once I finally did, I stood out of my chair, and noticed something… it was, literally, a new day. I had a whole new attitude now. Sending those applications out, I told myself ‘I did my best, and no one can say otherwise, so getting accepted or not is no longer an indication of who I am’. I was still a nervous wreck, just not as nervous. In late January, as I was lecturing about a Paul Auster short story, I got the news. I got it!!! That moment, everything summed itself up and gave me the biggest gust of relief. Knuckles bruised, hair a mess, barely enough cash to buy lunch that afternoon, I somehow actually got it. Somehow, in that pit, I found a jewel that got me out of it. I now have to carry this precious and tiny jewel close as I finally trek up the mountain. I taught my last semester as an adjunct professor, said goodbye to my lovely coworkers, left California, and began my program. Perseverance was the jewel.
Conclusion: Actually Writing My Damn Dissertation
https://sijrr214.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/onlymp3.to-car-seat-headrest-i-can-talk-with-my-eyes-shut-livestream-bo7swwoygto-192k-1694540992.mp3(click here to listen to the acoustic version of I Can Talk With My Eyes Shut by Car Seat Headrest)
It’s 6:47 pm, and I’m back in the library. I taught a class a few hours ago, met with students during my office hours, and finished a grading run. Now, it’s time to get back to writing. As of this writing, I have one chapter (plus revisions) left to complete my dissertation. I really like my subject and the research I’m doing for it is continuously and perpetually turning me into the expert I wish to become in my subject. And I have all my sources on tabs in my browser window. (all 33) I have everything I need to finish…..but Christ, I’m tired. Writing this dissertation is taking every ounce of strength I have. When I’m hanging out with friends or talking to people, a paragraph is being shaped in my head. When I stop by for a Coke on the way home, another voice says, ‘You should also be planning out your writing schedule for tomorrow’. On days when I have to teach, I have to squeeze in some kind of writing; on days I have free, I dedicate the whole day to diss writing. I’m tapping into all the skills that got me here to finish this. What I didn’t expect was how unique the dissertation writing process was like. There’s a huge revision process. I have to learn a whole new citation format. I have to send my drafts to my committee, but wrangling four people together is next to impossible. Also, thanks to the hundreds of other jobs I have, it’s really difficult to squeeze in writing when I’m working on other projects. (shhh!! don’t tell my committee this, but…) Last Fall, I was so busy with taking on so many other jobs (read all about those jobs here), that I barely touched my dissertation for the whole semester. That is a huge no-no. On the days when I do focus, I sit down in front of my laptop and work. No metaphors, no figures of speech, no more mountains. It’s just….really hard. There are days where it feels like I’m staring at a paragraph, I try to add a sentence, second-guess myself, then agonize over a subordinate clause. I look at my watch- I spent FOUR HOURS on the merits on this clause! It’s so strange, like I’m trying to convince myself that it has to be perfect, but behind that notion, I’m trying to convince myself that it’s even possible. The real pressure comes from thinking about how you are contributing to your field. What makes this work worthy of joining the ranks of the works you are currently studying? What makes what I’m saying worth reading? Lastly, who the hell do I think I am doing this? And it’s really hard to turn to anyone about this. How many people on the planet have written a dissertation? (I don’t know about the planet, but in terms of the U.S., it’s 1.2%) I’ve been in front of my laptop for several hours now. I see the cursor blinking, and I’m trying to determine if I’m hungry or if I want to throw up. This is a good time to get up and go for a walk.
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(the moment I needed to get up and get away from my laptop)
I have one more chapter to finish, but I’m so ready to call it. Ideas are no longer flowing out of my fingers. It’s more like dust. The sun is moving closer to setting, the day coming to a close, but I have to keep writing. My job is to write out my ideas clearly and coherently. I’ve already demonstrated that I have every skill needed to finish. It’s now time to get all of those skills and prove that here. I’m looking at this chapter, lost and feeling defeated, but then I step away from my laptop, and I see the bigger picture. I’ve been asking the whole time, What does the next paragraph need to look like? But that’s not the right question. It’s actually, How will the ideas I’m working on now fit with the rest of this project? It’s like a big puzzle, trying to fit everything. It’s a huge task, but strangely, stepping away makes writing this thing way easier. Then, it hits me: I’m not writing this so I can solve the world’s problems. (maybe some day, but…) I’m writing this because I care about it. There’s a project my committee approved, and it’s now up to me to write, and I’m (kinda literally) the only person on the planet who can write it. This walk, like a Fairy Godmother blessing me, is exactly what I needed, clearing away my writer’s block, granting me the clarity I need. As I walk back to the library, the pressure is lifted. I’m not trying to cure cancer, or find the Holy Grail; I’m trying to write a dissertation, and I’m perfectly qualified to do that. There is no guarantee that this will get published, or that it will land me job (if anyone on LinkedIn sees this, please give me a job after finishing my program ), but it’s the next phase towards a career goal over ten years in the making. It will be one of the biggest accomplishments in my life, but it will not define me. I’m writing this because I care about something. My only goal is to, someday, get this one subject, something about ten people on the planet know about, and increase that number to eleven, twelve if I’m really good at it. I have everything I need to finish this at my disposal. My sources, a bottle of Coke, and my headphones and study beats. Now I have to sit down and finish.
walking back to the library
I’m back from my walk. I’m sitting down now, about to finish this final chapter. I’m exactly where I need to be.
All of my WSIJM posts end with a quote. Here’s one from Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, the most recent Murakami novel I read during this writing process:
Our lives are like a complex musical score, Tsukuru thought. Filled with all sorts of cryptic writing, sixteenth and thirty-second notes and other strange signs. It’s next to impossible to correctly interpret these, and even if you could, and then could transpose them into the correct sounds, there’s no guarantee that people would correctly understand, or appreciate, the meaning therein. No guarantee it would make people happy.
I’m about to finish my dissertation. I don’t know if this is good, or if it will make anyone happy. My only hope is that once it’s out there, someone, someday, somewhere, feels inspired to write their story, too. I don’t know who that person is, but I promise to read it.
Notion (The Rare Occasions)Glass, Concrete and Stone (David Byrne)Cariños (The MariasHalf a World Away (R.E.M.)I Can Talk with My Eyes Shut (Car Seat Headrest)
https://sijrr214.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/sufjan-stevens-_chicago-demo_-official-music.mp3(click the player above to hear “Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens)
It’s Monday, about 2:30 in the afternoon, and I am lying on my bed, arms and legs spread out, like a starfish resting on a rock at the bottom of the ocean. I say this every semester, but I can’t emphasize this enough…this was one of the most grinding, demanding, exhausting, work-filled, break-deficient, shovel-to-the-face semesters during my time at OSU. It was a lot of work, but it would be disingenuous if I said this was solely the product of my program. I signed up for so much, and I could have said No to several of these tasks. But I didn’t, and now I’m in a constant search for pockets of time in order to get work done. Today, I’m resting. I decided to allocate time after work on Mondays to doing nothing. Most Mondays, I’ll run some errands, catch up with friends, cook an elaborate dish that takes the rest of the evening to make. (chicken piccata is way harder to make than it looks) But today, my body is telling me, If you don’t rest and take time to recover, I’m gonna take that time from you. That ends up becoming nights of crappy sleep, always feeling like I’m catching up, constantly moving pots to and from the backburner. The worst part is that when you’re out of time, you don’t have the chance to really reflect on what you’re doing. I don’t get to ask myself, Why am I doing this? Is this effort all worth it? Am I building towards something, or am I delusional in thinking that, while really, I’m just addicted to overworking myself? I’m resting on this bed, with small traces of lavender and currants from the candle lit in my room. I have the time now.
So is this all worth it? How exactly is the semester going? Do I want to keep getting grinded down by the end of the day? I really have to think about this. Now, I have the time to ask…
Here’s what my semester looked like, broken down in a series of bullet points:
Dissertation writingDissertating
There’s a small part of me that is still amazed by just being here. I’m currently completing my doctoral degree at an R1 institution. I’m writing a dissertation, a phrase I thought I’d never have the right to say. So, technically, I accomplished a long and difficult dream, and I’m now here, doing that…but, holy crap, this is exhausting. I am always reading something, or writing something, or re-reading what I just wrote, all while an ever-present sense of what I’m working on hovers over me like a specter, reminding me of its existence. I knew that writing was going to be hard work, and hard work is not something I shy away from. I know what doing hard work is like. I’ve worked in my dad’s construction company, carrying sacks of concrete and piles of bricks; I’ve rebuilt engines; I’ve worked 14-hr shifts behind a bar. But this is a different kind of hard. My brain is getting racked with information. It’s like I’m loading by brain with knowledge while my skull serves as the stand mixer that, if all goes well, is mixing it into something useful. I actually like writing, but the editing process is what gets you. I once spent a week reading a textbook that I thought was going to help me with my research, until I started the writing part, figuring out where everything goes. After a good five pages of writing, I realized that I was misinterpreting the author’s main argument. It took a week to figure out what I was doing wrong. The best way to describe all of this- it’s an intellectual marathon, my goal a long way from now, but still always ever-demanding. Sometimes, when I’m feeling stuck, I’ll go for a small walk to clear my head. I really needed a walk after deleting those five pages.
My dissertation is on the comics of COVID-19. To be more specific, I’m looking at what insight these comics offer when it came to learning about what surviving COVID-19 was like in the pre-vaccine period, and how these artists responded to this historical moment. As a scholar of medical humanities, I’m really interested in the stories people share when experiencing illness and trauma. I get to ask questions like, what are they experiencing and how is the text reflecting that? What can we learn about illness through these narratives? How can the storytelling experience contribute to their recouperation? Something really interesting I learned involved experiencing a distorted sense of time when living under statewide lockdowns; without things like routines and daily interactions with others, time can lose its own meaning. When I read stuff like this, I think about what I went through, my friends and family, the stories that helped us get by that time, and I think, I kinda have to write this…because this is why my field exists in the first place. When this thought comes back into my head, I get this renewed sense of purpose, making me want to write again. Sure, this isn’t a constant, and if I let it, it can turn into a vicious cycle, where writing is only done after a lot of reflection and introspection. For now, I look forward to the good days- a “good day” is when I have read enough and feel confident enough to write, and then I write. This is not too sustainable, either, but a good day is helpful enough to make up for several bad ones. And on those good days, I feel good about what I wrote. I like the good days, and I like what I’m writing.
Teaching Narrative Medicine Teaching Narrative Medicine
This semester, I taught the Narrative Medicine section in the English department. I was so looking forward to teaching this section. I got to teach and give lectures on books that drew me to my field, have deep class discussions about health, and life, and how to live, all that. And I had some stellar students who really bought into what Narrative Medicine is trying to accomplish. (as Rita Charon puts it, “Narrative Competence enhances Medical Competence) I remember walking to class, feeling so privileged, as if I’m walking towards the job in line with my academic trajectory. And the class discussions were great. What made this class difficult was the pressure. I worked so long to get to teach this class, so I felt like I had to make sure everything was perfect. Making sure my lectures were sound, being up to date with readings, and my students leaving class feeling like they really learned something. It was great to get the chance to teach that class, but each class felt like running a race, the kind where every second mattered. I would dismiss class feeling spent after, with every ounce of strength left going to the walk between class and my office. I’ve taught for several years before coming to OSU, and have taught classes here as well, but with this class, it was radically different. I felt like I was doing the job I was going to have, and the only way to make sure that happened was to make sure teaching this section was spot-on. I don’t know if that was the right strategy, but my students learned so much, and all it took was working myself down to the bone. Once I got to my office, I would look down at my hands to make sure I wasn’t vanishing. Nope- still there. I’m just really tired.
Editor at QuePasa magazineTeam QuePasa
I remember years ago, I worked as a photographer for an indie rock club in Silver Lake, CA (a music venue that is no longer in business). The place was amazing, and that job gave me so much access to shows and getting to know bands. I got really good at taking those once-in-a-lifetime shots, and I would hang out backstage and drink shots with rock stars. One night, the band Terraplane Sun (a band that no longer exists) was playing, and I remember taking pictures of them, and with each press of the shutter button, I thought, I’m never going to have a job cooler than this one. After getting hired as Editor at Que Pasa, Ohio State Magazine, I was humbly corrected. I’ve always wanted a job where writing was the focus, caring about the content and words I was putting out there. I got a chance to work with a great team, and a faculty advisor who had my back when people…(how do I put this without incriminating myself?) didn’t like some of my editorial decisions. The best part was working with artists and writers who were really enthused about getting published. We’ve published poems, murals, photo essays, interviews, and really strong essays from students and faculty who really cared about seeing their work in our magazine. The energy you get from seeing a magazine go from a series of possible articles to a finished product, printed and holding it in your hands- I can’t think of another job that can offer that.
While I liked working there, it was by no means easy. I would spend hours with my team debating article design and structure, and fight over what sounds best, down to the last comma. It also feels like one of those jobs where you are always on the clock. Someone will always need your input, or will want to pitch an idea, or an event will take place and you just have to write about it. Even at the scale of a student-run campus magazine, the world of journalism is ever-encompassing. I would walk across campus, see an event happening, or read about something that is making national headlines, and this voice tells me, “Hey- QuePasa should write about that”, a voice that is never off. I also had some cool opportunities, like interviewing the wife of the President of Ohio State University, and getting invited to collaborate with student organizations. It feels like a “heavy lies the crown” narrative, where I have a great opportunity, only to feel the weight of it once I got there, imploring me to ask if this is what I want. Overall, I really like this gig, and look forward to the next issue. But if I want to do it well, I know I have to anticipate long nights, working crazy hours, and having hour-long conversations about the merits of the Oxford comma. It’s like my old job, but less drinking and more attention to detail. (actually, no, it’s still pretty consistent)
Volunteering at The JamesVolunteering at The James
This semester, I started volunteering at the OSU James Cancer Treatment and Research Center. My job at the James was pretty simple, actually. My title was “Lobby Ambassador”, and my job entailed a little more than pointing visitors and incoming patients to certain floors or escorting someone to a room or clinic, sometimes needing me to push them in their wheelchair. Some days were a bit slow, where I would only help a handful of people after the entirety of my shift. Also, I was never really on the frontlines when it came to helping or treating people with whatever they were suffering from. My coworkers were nice, and I liked my supervisors. From this perspective, it was a pretty simple gig.
But, umm…..can I share something with you about this job? I swear I won’t violate HIPAA laws or anything…
Every time I walked in to that building and clocked-in to work, I was terrified. I had no idea what to expect, and because I had no medical background, I felt not only underqualified, but like I had no business being there. There’s an episode in the show The Bear on Hulu that opens with the main character walking to work with the song Chicago by Sufjan Stevens playing in the background. This is at the start of an episode that goes from simple to disastrous really quickly. I listen to that song every time I walk in the hospital, as if I’m preparing myself for catastrophe. I love reading stories about how people grapple with illness and live with a new way of seeing, and the idea of helping someone with my knowledge in medical humanities feels invigorating. But those are stories told in books; in there, there are real people suffering from real-world illness. What will happen if someone comes to the hospital asking for help and I have no idea what to do? What will happen if someone walks in, bleeding, with their organs falling out of their abdominal cavity? These were the questions that ran through my mind walking in. Thankfully, I had training that reminded me that my role is very defined, as is everyone else’s, which means those who are qualified for helping with issues like those will be there. It was one of the few occasions where I liked rigidly defined roles. And on a couple of occasions, I was able to help in the way that I was best qualified. One time, an older woman who only spoke Spanish came to the front desk with a billing concern. I was able to both translate for her, as well as get her the attention she needed. Another time, one of the front-desk clerks asked me if I could wash a patient’s sweater in the downstairs washing machine. (she had an accident involving taking her sweater off, and also poop) No, I can’t do open-heart surgery or administer someone’s chemo drugs, but I did the things I was trained for, and I did them well. When my shift was over, I would take the rest of the day off, decompressing, putting my shift behind me. Next semester, I will continue to volunteer. I’ll still need to decompress after, but I’m looking forward to helping people at the capacity I’m being asked of.
Co-running a Program for the College of the ArtsWith my colleague from the Arts and Resilience program at The Wex
When I signed up for working with the College of the Arts, I already had teaching, writing, working as an editor, and volunteering at the James set up. One of my advisors put me in contact with someone when I told her I was interested in alt-ac (alternative to academia) jobs in medical humanities. We met over Zoom, and after several minutes of chatting, she offered me a position to co-run a program she was starting. As I began the discussion for taking on this new job, I could hear a small bird chirping outside, singing a song about the fox who stole one egg too many, only to become too hungry for his own good. The bird was really distracting, so I shooed him away. This has stretched into a year-long project that will be more active next semester, but I really liked the build-up to it and enthusiastically said Yes. I think one reason why I agreed to do this was because this was a chance to really put my passion for my studies into practice. I will be working with the Arts and Resilience program at the Wex. (learn more about that here) It’s an amazing organization that ties art and art-making to wellness, including exhibits and programs available for the greater Columbus area. In the last several months discussing what this will look like, it reminded me of the work my dad did building block walls and laying concrete, where your hands are always working, integral to the style of your work. It’s hard on your hands, but once it’s done, you wash them up, take a second to look at your work, then move on to the next project. Now that I’m near the end of my doctoral program, I really want to work. I want to put my hands to work, forming, shaping, cultivating the career I’ve spent years building. I can already feel so many doors opening outside of my current field thanks to this project. This project will show me what that will look like. I’m going to be exhausted once it’s done, but it’s a kind of exhaustion I look forward to.
It’s Monday, about 2:30 in the afternoon, and I’m resting. All of these thoughts ran through my head in a span of about ten seconds, but the questions still linger. This is a lot of work, and I’m qualified to find a job that can make more money than I’m making now and is less hours of work per week. I can easily stop all of this, find a 9-5 job and be content. I think what draws me to all of this is that….I don’t want to be content. Or more like, I don’t want to settle for content. I want to do work that matters. I want to apply what I know and help humanity, however the hell I can do that. I think one reason why I gravitated towards medical humanities was because it gave me a way to tie what I’m passionate about, writing and studying literature, and apply it to helping others, like in the public sector or something related to public health. My pie-in-the-sky goal is to one day run (maybe own?) a rehabilitation center where narrative medicine is central to its process and a tenet in its mission statement. This is a really lofty goal, one that may never materialize, but the work I’m doing now is turning that into a real-world possibility. And I couldn’t do this by myself- my advisors, students, Team QuePasa, my supervisors and coworkers at The James, and the people at The Wex all deserve so much praise, keeping me grounded through all of this. But then there’s something else….is it okay that I have a job that runs me to the ground after every shift? Is putting myself through this metaphorical meat-grinder worth it? I feel like the only way I can answer that question is until I can actually stop working and look back, but that is lightyears into the future. Maybe not knowing that right now and making the most of my program for now is okay. As I lay on this bed, asking these questions, I’m reminded of another time when I wanted to stop and ask these questions, but couldn’t. When I quit my old 9-5 job to become a full-time student, it put my ambitions to the test. I loved being a student, but it was not easy by any stretch. I worked several minimum wage jobs just to pay my bills. During my second semester of being a full-time student, my car broke down, and I had to figure out how to get to campus using public transportation. Getting to school, a community college that was an hour away driving, turned into a two-hour commute that included three trains and small bus. One day, on the way home on the train, I ended up falling asleep with my face resting on the window. It was the end of the line for that train, so I didn’t miss my next one, but I still needed to get out to catch that last train ride home. A security guard saw me and smacked the window where my face was from the outside with a metal flashlight, the kind police carry. That sound was so jolting, like a hard pop that shakes your bones, to the point where it is not difficult to recollect that feeling over ten years later. On that day, I let out a small phrase from under my breath, saying, “All of this better be worth it”. I’m now doing things that Young Rolando has been working towards that took years to accomplish. If I, Present-day Rolando, could go back, I could confidently tell him that he will achieve goals he never thought possible and is building towards something bigger than himself, and yes it will be a lot of time, labor, and sacrifice, but it is beyond what he could imagine. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon, and I’m resting. It’s a well-earned rest, the kind that will charge my emotional and intellectual batteries. This time, I can rest well, without the fear of someone hitting me in the face with a flashlight. It’s a good rest.
First Pic of the Fall Semester
One of the strangest feelings academia produces is waking up, looking at a blank page, and beginning to write page one of two hundred. I’m not even sure how to describe it- intimidating? flummoxing? disheveling? discombobulating? A lot of “dis-” words come to mind. I’m in my fifth and final year of my doctoral program, teaching and continuing my job as an editor for a student magazine, all while in the thick of dissertation writing. With the end of my program around the corner, I would love to take a day off to just sit with my feelings and ask myself, What do I want? Where do I see myself going? What contribution do I wish to make with the training I’ve received during my time at OSU? The problem is that every moment I can spare has now been allocated to the dissertation writing process. The whole process feels all-encompassing, like swimming in jell-o. I have no idea if I’ll ever make it out, or if I’m even doing the thing I’m supposed to do to get out. There are days when you are on an upswing, where the words flow out of you, sentences like strings of brilliance, like you were born to do this. But those periods do not last long, only to then face the dreaded blank page again. A good day is when writing happens. My biggest problem was getting there.
I started this process in the Fall of last year. I thought I knew what I wanted to write, but every time I read a new source or started the outlining process, I was knocked sideways, as if to remind me how much value this document has. Looking back, it wasn’t just the writing that knocked me back- the whole semester was really strange. My semester started with passing candidacy exams, then shooting right into teaching. I was still working as an editor, while also applying for grants and scholarships, and teaching recitation, which is where you teach a secondary component to a lecture class. I have done work like that before, multiple times, but being in the classroom felt way more taxing. Another facet to last Fall that needs to be stated was that it was the first semester where meeting in class was starting up after a year of distance learning for a lot of departments, including mine. We were all wearing face masks, trying to fend off the latest coronavirus variant. Something about spending all day in the library and in class wearing a facemask felt so exhausting. Teaching sucked the life out of me. I didn’t get any of the grants I applied for. I was dating someone that ended terribly. I’m juggling all of these molotov cocktails, all while trying to generate pages for a document that is supposed to encapsulate my work as a grad student. You know that feeling when you’re cooking, and you’re in a terrible mood, and as a result, the food ends up tasting really gross? That’s what it felt like to look at the words at that stage of diss writing. I was not in a good place, and the words on the page were gross and unappealing.
At the end of the semester, I got to do something that always cheers up my LA-native soul. I went back home to Los Angeles for winter break. I was already imagining the juicy In-N-Out burger I was about to have, and the seasonal tamales and carnitas being prepped at home. I couldn’t wait to see my friends and family, compressing the period between the last time I saw them and now into nothing. It was going to be great…until it wasn’t. Due to the latest Omicron variant, a lot of places shut back down, and seeing friends was really difficult. Since a lot of friends were staying with family, a lot of people chose to play it safe and not go out to public places or allow non-immediate family or guests over. That was exactly what everyone was supposed to do, as we were all reminded on a daily basis the exponential increase in infections and deaths. Hanging out with friends and enjoying the period between semesters was usurped by COVID-19…again. I tried making small adventures out of going grocery shopping with family or playing with my pets. It was a tiny bit of salve on a wound that refused to heal.
Post-Drive My Car Nightcap
Looking back, there was one thing that happened that winter break that ended up becoming a small gem through the weeds of that period. I saw the film Drive My Car, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. It was a film based on a Haruki Murakami short story about the relationship between the protagonist and his driver. What drew me to it was how a movie about two people in car can become this overarching meditation on life and relationships. I thought about the times I would drive my own car for hours on end, my favorite music playing, letting my thoughts run their course, or the times when some of the most intimate discussions I’ve had with friends took place while looking forward in a cramped space and terrible weather blaring outside. That was my impression of the film; it was way more than that. It was a three-hour movie (possibly the longest movie I’ve seen in a theater) about love, grief, relationships, music, the contrasts between early and modern Japan, Anton Chekov, the #metoo era, and storytelling. This film blew me away. I loved how it portrayed the relationships people have with their cars, and how a skill like driving well can become a catalyst for two people bonding. It reminded me of my car-loving days, feeling so connected to every movement, every sway, behind the wheel. It reminded me of the pride I took changing the brake pads and adjusting the timing of the engine, looking at my dirty hands without shame. And it was way more than that, too. (Spoiler alert for the ending!) At the end of the film, the two characters bond over the grief they’ve experienced after losing loved ones. As the two simultaneously experience the catharsis they both needed, the protagonist says to the driver, “Those who survive keep thinking about the dead. In one way or another that will continue. You and I must keep living…it’ll be okay”. It’d a beautiful sentiment about living with grief and the toll it takes to process it. I’m sitting in the theater, while thinking about the thousands of people suffering from COVID infections, strapped to ventilators and refusing to get vaccinated. (Sidenote- I went to see the film wearing a face mask, but it was so empty, not wearing one was not a huge problem) I started doubt my reading of this film, thinking, No- you’re reading too much into this. It was a few moments later when the film comes to its full closure, where you see the driver at a grocery store shopping while wearing a face mask, and the store taking all necessary COVID precautions. I left the theater, putting my mask back on as I walked through the lobby, thinking…This is the movie I needed to see this Winter break. I flew back to Columbus a couple of days later, though I wished I could have driven the whole way back.
First Pic of the Spring Semester
The Spring semester was starting to look like a huge improvement when it started. I was teaching my own class, still working for the magazine, and my focus got a lot sharper. While it wasn’t difficult to resume teaching and studying, one distraction was feeling so compelled to read more Haruki Murakami. I wanted to read the original Drive My Car story, but I thought, How can I dedicate time reading something that has nothing to do with my studies while writing my dissertation? But it was such a hard feeling to shake. More questions started creeping in. What did they get right adapting the story? How do you turn a 30-pg. story into a three-hour movie? What does the writing of that story look like? Do all Haruki Murakami adaptations have this quality? I just had to read this story. I bought a copy of Men Without Women, the anthology where Drive My Car is from. I read the story, then the rest of the stories. (my favorite was Scheherazade) On those days where writing just wasn’t happening, I would take my copy out and read. Then I started noticing something…every time I read, all of the cobwebs in my head started to clear. I don’t know if it served as a healthy distraction, or some kind of warm-up for my brain (maybe both?), but I soon started reading for myself before writing, and it became this amazing solution to getting through writing. I would read, then put it away and focus on diss writing, and I got so much done! Reading became this safe space when it came to the diss writing blues. And, somehow, Haruki Murakami became the unofficial mayor of this space.
Murakami by candlelight
I read a lot of books during this writing process. I read The Book of Illusions, a Paul Auster novel I’ve been meaning to read for a while; I re-read Lisa Genova’s Still Alice, a book assigned to me from my Page-to-Bedside class, but nonetheless a book I’m happy to reread; I also read several Junji Ito Mangas, including Uzumaki and Remina. But after reading Men Without Women, I entered this phase where I wanted to read everything ever written by Haruki Murakami. Initially, it was because I knew I would never have to write a paper about it. It felt nice to read something that had nothing to do with my studies. I also didn’t want my impression of Murakami writing to solely be based on an anthology of short stories. He’s a novelist, through-and-through…the kind I aspire to be. The book I started after was Kafka on the Shore. It is one of the most jarring books I’ve ever read, with several timelines and material that would irk anyone, like statutory rape, animal mutilation, and incest. It had all of this, yet it was also a marvel of a novel. Every component a novel needs to be great, this one delivered them without hesitation. Every character, subplot, setting, element of fantasy and the surreal, historical reference, every piece delivered in this amazing book, a book I could read the way I tear into a steak. It was a really good book to read. I had to continue this trek, reading one hour a day, as the fuel for diss writing.
I later read After Dark and I’m currently reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Reading After Dark felt more like witnessing an experience these two people went through, the way someone recounts the last bender they went on. I loved how it spoke to my Nightowl self, navigating the world at three in the morning. Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a slow burn. I didn’t think I was going to like a novel about a guy whose wife leaves him as the starting point of a novel, until the stories wrapped around it unfurled into this landscape of adventures. I also read a book that concretized my connection to Murakami: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. In this memoir, Murakami connects the novel-writing experience to preparing for a marathon. After reading the description, I felt that this was one of those books that comes into your life for a reason. I love what writing does for me and I love what running does to me. Identifying as a writer and a jogger, it’s not difficult to see the connection between the two. And I would love for that to be the end of it, but it was impossible to read this and not think about dissertation writing. This is the writing taking over my everyday. All day, I think about sentences, flow, coherence, framing devices, how my sources work together, and try to organize them into a piece of writing that encapsulates my research interests. I’m in the headspace Murakami is in as I read his book, but am producing writing that could not be more different.
Click to view slideshow.I really appreciated the moments in the book where he talks about his process, for both writing and running, as they almost mirrored what I knew about both this whole time. He loves talking about the music he listens to during running and his love of a good fountain pen. I don’t listen to music when I go jogging, and I’ve never owned a fountain pen. But I do know how important creating a good playlist or loading an album to get into a writing grove is. It becomes the oil that lights the flame inside of you when you are on a writing upswing. I don’t, nor have I ever, owned a fountain pen, but I always carry a journal in case some idea pops into my head, catching it before its ephemeral state disappears into nothingness. There are only so many things in the world more pleasing than writing a letter with a good pen, on paper that aides in communicating the heart of those words. Music and a love for stationary are fine connections, but when he gets into the connections between writing and running a marathon is when I totally get what he means. Early in the book, he writes, “…writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically, a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn’t seek validation in the outwardly visible”. I love the feeling when I get to do the writing I want to do (such as the writing I do here, on my blog). I don’t feel like the world is pressuring me to produce something, or like I’m competing with anyone. I’m practicing and putting in the work because I want to be a better writer than I was yesterday. As for “validation in the outwardly visible”, I don’t know who reads my blog, but if someone took the time to do so, all I can feel is appreciation that they cared enough to do so. (Sidenote: to those reading this, I can’t describe to you enough how grateful I am for your eyes and for your time) These connections are real, and I have experienced many, if not, all of these. But that’s when I write for me. When it comes to dissertation writing…ugh.
When I think about dissertation writing, I think about the parameters I’m confined to. The writing is direct and unambiguous for a reason. You are trying to enter the space that is academic discourse, which involves being fluent in academic jargon and, at minimum, the last hundred years of research in your field. The sentences themselves are under a kind of scrutiny that will require multiple rewrites, even if it means starting from scratch. While the writing is important, what is just as important is the time spent researching, making sure you are in dialogue with the scholarship, while also making sure you are not missing any of the latest arguments or contributions. Sometimes, writing a novel can feel like this, where you are trying to do something new and make your contribution to the literary world known, but a stark difference is that when writing a novel, there is no committee you must stay in constant contact with in order to make sure your writing is contributing something meaningful. The process, for better or worse, is collaborative, very much unlike the novel writing or the marathon running Murakami talks about. There’s an adage that gets thrown around in grad student circles once you reach the dissertation phase: a good dissertation is a done dissertation. I care so much about writing well, and I feel so gross turning in work that I’m not proud of. Concurrently, every day that passes, that adage that becomes more and more true.
There’s a part in WITAWITAR (can I use this acronym for What I Think About When I Think About Running? or stick to the title? what do you think?…Yeah, I’ll stick with the title) where Murakami reflects on what it takes to be a writer after being asked this question so many times. He breaks it down to three parts: talent, focus, and endurance. Here is where the connections to dissertation writing become very apparent. For talent, yes, this is very necessary. While the talent to write a novel and a dissertation are vastly different, they both nonetheless require talent; it’s just a different kind of talent. While the work, writing, and training you do in a graduate program leads you up to this stage, if you do not possess the talent to write a dissertation, it will ultimately lead to difficult conversations you will have to have with your committee. It’s very hard to imagine someone making it to the dissertation phase and not possess the skills needed to write a dissertation, but it’s not only possible; it has led to some brilliant people not completing their programs. The talent, however, is not exactly the same as writing a novel. If your writing possesses the ability to reflect your interests in your field and shape your ideas in a way that contributes something meaningful, then you can essentially write a dissertation. This kind of talent has more to do with making artful connections and seeing something through the material that only you can see. It’s still difficult to master, but it’s ultimately very much a talent you have to possess. The second part is focus. I don’t think anyone would disagree with this opinion. Murakami describes this focus as “the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment”. It is so easy to get distracted, or to go off on a research tangent, or stop writing because of all of the other things you are working on. That will be the doom of your dissertation. You have to focus on things like deadlines, a cap on sources, and making sure you are in communication with your committee. This is a big deal because it is so easy to leave it. If you are not dedicating time to your dissertation at least 2-3 times a week, you will be the grasshopper who didn’t harvest during the summer, getting left out in the cold in the winter. And the winters in the Midwest can be pretty brutal. The third part is endurance. This is also something I can’t think anyone would disagree with. The main reason is because you are being asked to write a looooooooooong piece of writing composed by hours and hours of research. Not only can you not treat a dissertation like a term paper you wrote the night before, but it’s not possible. You have to dedicate so many hours to studying your subject, to the point where it’s totally possible that you’ll spend weeks solely dedicated to reading about your subject. You also have to endure the revision process, which involves spending weeks of writing, only to be asked to start all over since your research is inconsistent and your writing isn’t reflecting your best writing. If you can’t dust off your shoulders and continue working through that process, you won’t finish. That’s another thing no one would disagree with. These three parts speak so much to writing, both to novel writing, and dissertation writing, but (if I may), as someone who is interested in both, I feel that we can add one more part: you have to care. Whether it’s the inner-lives of the characters, or the main argument of your dissertation, it’s going to be so hard to push through and finish if you are writing something you have no interest in. You are writing about a subject you will dedicate hours on days on weeks on months on years of writing. The interest you have in it has to be a kind of interest that will encourage you to continue to write to write well. (this may be my own prejudice when it comes to writing, but…) If you are writing about something that you don’t care about, why should your audience care? I know that graduation status and economic factors contribute to the completion of a project, but like one of the lessons you have most likely learned at the professional stage of your life, you are forced to ask, If you don’t love what you do, why do it? I’m saying this while a gigantic pile of books is waiting for me to pick up at the library. I really don’t want to go down there right now. But I will. I know I will.
Thompson video
When Murakami writes about running marathons and the connections he makes to novel writing, you can tell they are coming from genuine observations. He reflects on his time running a marathon in Athens and how he had to completely change his daily and weekly routine to become a full-time writer. But, ultimately, writing a dissertation and a novel are two different things. I think about my experience with diss writing, and then about the kind of running I’m into. During the summer, I would spend all day in the library until it closed, then go to the gym. Due to a health issue I’ve had for years (you can learn all about that here), I adopted a jogging practice that helps address that issue. I’ll go the indoor track, jog three laps, then sprint the next lap. Those four laps are one set- I’ll do three sets. When you start, you are well-aware of what you are trying to accomplish, keeping an even pace, making sure you are jogging slowly, but fast enough to give yourself a workout. After the first lap, you feel good, like you are in sync with your body, and the process, and things are going well. You keep jogging, focusing on reaching each benchmark, finishing lap 2, then lap 3. As you turn into the end of the lane, you think about how much energy you will need for the next lap, hoping that you have enough….
AND THEN YOU SPRINT!!!!!!!
you can feel the fire coming out of your lungs, your legs are made of pure muscle, launching you forward like a cheetah, you work and work and work, breathe and breathe and breathe, pumping out as much as you can, then you see the finish line, but you don’t slow down, you speed up, faster, and then…..
You start the next set. Your body wants you to stop…but you can’t. You are now in the process of completing this project, visualizing the end, and how good it will feel when it’s done. Your pace slows down dramatically, until you pass that second lap, then you get a new wave of inspiration. You feel better, jog a little faster, and your vision clears up. You feel like you have regained the energy you lost since the first lap. Your confidence comes back, and you keep working….
AND THEN YOU SPRINT!!!!!!
your lungs hate you. The ease of quitting is so tempting. This is strenuous work. Why the hell are you doing this? Your feet hurt after lap after lap of pounding the track floor, your legs wobble, if it wasn’t for the focus you held on to, you most likely would have slipped, but you keep going, because you have to, then it’s strangely not so bad…
The next set starts up, and you feel exhausted. You jog at a drastically slowed pace, caring more about just standing up straight than finishing. You hope that you will feel better once you finish the second lap, but you don’t. Instead, you are now solely dedicated to finishing. Your arms are swaying instead of swinging, the thoughts in your head are just jumbles. You try to pick up the pace in the third lap, but you are so exhausted, it’s almost impossible. But you keep going…because you have to. You have done so much work. Work to be proud of. Work that is the product of dedication, focus, and endurance. You did this. You are the one completing this final lap. There is no one competing against you. It’s just you and one more lap. One more lap that will most likely take all of the wind out of you…
AND THEN YOU SPRINT!!!
sprint, damn you! You can do this…you’re running…you’re one with your talent…words…ideas…clarity…these are only things you care about at this point, all of your energy, all of your heart, goes into finishing this lap…faster…you’re so close…the last bend is coming up, but you don’t slow down…you speed up…finish on your terms…you got yourself here, after laps and laps of hard work and determination…you’re about to cross the finish line….
You finish your final lap, stop cold, and take the heaviest breaths your body can withstand. Yes, it hurts to exhale, yes, it hurts to drink cold water so quickly, yes, you are drenched in sweat…but you did it. You did it when even you yourself thought you couldn’t finish. You’ve earned a large gulp of cold water. You’ve earned splashing your scalp with water, not caring about the water that splashes around the fountain. Once you’ve caught your breath, you walk out another lap to gradually slow your heart down, but also as a kind of victory lap, reveling in accomplishment. The air entering your lungs feels so good, puffing out your chest each time, accompanied by a sense of pride that only comes from accomplishing something great…
That’s what it’s like after finishing one chapter in your dissertation. You have three to go, plus an introduction and conclusion. I’m gonna do a lot of running.
Reading Murakami novels made me think so much about being a writer. As I was reading this, I asked myself, kinda a lot, what is the writing I’m interested in. I want to be a novelist, writing stories that tap into that feeling in your heart that reminds you of your humanity. (I also want to know, How do I write and not come off as a sexist? A lot of criticism of Murakami comes from accusations of sexism. There is a very interesting piece that looks into that, including an interview with a renowned Japanese novelist. Read that interview here) My goal now is to channel that passion into the writing I’m doing now. My research is on the comics of COVID-19, specifically on the comics written during the first waves of COVID-19 spread, pre-vaccine. I want to explore what the comic medium has to offer writers who tried to work during a pandemic and the anxieties that came along with it. The questions I’m asking help to ground the seriousness of my work with my passion for medical humanities and comics studies. I may not be writing in the style I get to in my blog, but I was able to find an idea that can address the struggles of everyday people trying to live through a pandemic, and possibly provide insight into what it means to survive a pandemic. I think about the writing I’m doing, Drive My Car, how, as I write this, we are still in a pandemic, and my own experience catching COVID. I know what my heart wants to say. I now have to adhere to the process that will bring these ideas into the space that is academia. There’s a passage in the book that makes me think about what I’m being asked, and whether or not I could even do it. In What I Think About When I Think About Running, Murakami writes,
“I think certain types of processes don’t allow for any variation. If you have to be part of that process, all you can do is transform-or perhaps distort-yourself through that persistent repetition, and make that process a part of your own personality”.
I care about this project, and I want to do it well. The goal now is to embrace this new genre of writing and use it as a vehicle for sharing my passion with the public. The process is difficult, but if it produces writing I can be proud of, I will do the work, and smile when it’s done, drinking the Negroni waiting for me at my favorite bar after my defense, celebrating with all of the voices that cheered me on getting here.
Epilogue: I would love to share some kind of wisdom or advice about dissertation writing I learned during this process, but the process itself is so individualized, that it’s hard to imagine one piece of advice that can speak to everyone in this stage. Interestingly enough, it is that uniqueness that helped me come up with something:
You ever hear someone say something about a friend, or in the movies when someone wants to pull a heist, and there’s something they have to do that’s really difficult, and someone says, “I know a guy”. The “guy” is someone so specialized and so good at what they do, it is no question that they will accomplish whatever task you give them. Writing a dissertation means aspiring to be “the guy”- you are the one person that is so specialized in your field, that you become the person people go to, scholars or not, when it comes to the subject. Your skill will be undeniable, and your aptitude will be legendary. When you’re “the guy”, you are the ambassador of your ideas, where you, and only, you can contribute this kind of writing, earning you praise in your circles. Be “the guy” that wrote your dissertation.
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In this three-part series of posts, I shared my experiences studying for candidacy exams. There was a point where I seriously thought this was never going to happen, stuck in a timeless space where goals and deadlines had no meaning. It was that last month where I started to feel grounded, like a survivalist mode … Continue reading I PASSED MY EXAMS!!! (Part 3 of 3)
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I’ve officially been in Columbus for 365 days. In that time, I moved, helped my friends move, jogged along the Olagntangy River, presented at a conference, donated blood, slipped on black ice, pulled a few all nighters, made friends with a cat, my research pivoted, had several existential crises, joined some circles of friends, with … Continue reading Aug 11, 2018/19
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