It's eleven at night and I'm in my cubicle in my 'lab'. I spend quite a lot of time in here; it's a great place to be - ultra-modern facilities like movement-activated lights, ultra-hot/ultra-cold/-all-filtered tap, even LCD PC screens (!!!), comfy armchairs overlooking huge bay windows onto err.. the library lawn, my own work desk and PC, book cupboard, meeting rooms, even sofa-beds. If they had installed shower facilities I'd have saved on rent and lived here permanently.
I've been trying to hammer out the paper proper, in time for my Melbourne trip. Over the past two weeks I'd put in scraps and bits, and have some 4000 words now. In a more credible spurt of concentration, I managed to properly think and write, and churned out 1000 words over two three-hour blocks. In terms of having a presentation paper, it's quite done, I've got my ideas in their right place, and supporting evidence marshalled. But I do want it published as a journal article, so I'm looking at 7-9000 words eventually. That means much more work, more editing. And in order not to let this huge commitment go to 'waste', I want to insert it into my thesis, and, that means even more work, even more editing.
Like I'd told S one despairing night, "I really don't know how I'm ever gonna graduate; and on that day I do, ask me how I did it, and I'll tell ya." Thesis-wise, I've written a grand total of one page. That's less than 500 words (out of the final 80,000-word thesis). The semester is coming to an end, and if I'm honest with myself, I suppose I've been quite a waste of time during this period. I've been continually reassured by fellow postgrads that this is Normal, and that It Will Pass. I sure hell hope it will, and quickly.
But essay-writing does get easier over time, with training. I've been marking some first-year assignments, and looking at the things they say, and that reflect their thought-processes, I believe it really is a matter of training (though old habits die hard and I mark out a lot of their grammatical errors). But back to my difficulty, it is concentrating to write, as opposed to reading novels, whining on MSN, youtubing, etc etc etc. I remember writing my very first undergrad Arts essay, a 1000-word piece on 'liberal democracy', and spent almost a month on it. Then as I progressed, the essays I wrote became 2500, 3000, 5000, and the last I heard, I did successfully write a master's dissertation in three months that came back with a distinction *pat pat* (but that is not something I encourage on a regular basis. One can very easily go mad). So if there is one thing that serves to encourage me, it'd be this paragraph. Let me visualise... writing those 80,000 words... word.. by.. word...
I must say my time here so far has confounded my sense and expectations of myself, and I suppose I've come to be better acquainted with who and what I am. And I've only been here three and a half months - who knows what the next three years would spring? The three letters, 'PhD' seem so quick, so easy, one imagines getting enrolled into a PhD programme, spend a few years thinking, reading, writing, and pop out at the other end with 'Dr' prefixing one's name, every step of the way a comfortable stroll. I never believed those who'd gone before when they said it's a test of character that would change one entirely. Now I do; and I'm already seeing myself changing, and not just intellectually. For one with a solitary and quiet temperament, who has experienced not a few of life's tragedies, I've nonetheless never felt so lonely, so unsure of myself, so daunted. It's not loneliness as we commonly refer to - it's a deeper, more consuming sense of loneliness that's not about being bored or restless or alone. It's the constant reminder from the deepest abyss of one's mind, that for all the friends and company and laughter and blue skies out and around, there is a journey that one has to and only one can undertake, with no firm ground, no signpost, no destination. There's only pitch-dark to point the way, to this vague point of light at the far end, another world.
I look forward to being in Melbourne next month, the city I once found myself and always loved and never really left. Just imagine, the wintry air and the laneway cafes, the smell of burnt coffee, the old streets with new shopwindows, the rumbling of the trams, whispers in the art gallery, the echoes in St Patrick's cathedral, footfalls on cobble stones, Old Arts of Melbourne University, rustling the fallen maple leaves. Just imagine - you latch onto the passing airport coach, and then the train, and then the tram, and then the right bringing wind, and spread out before you, is all of Melbourne.
DeGraves Cafe, Melbourne, June 2007
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