Mini-Post: Watching the Winter Olympics, Grading, and Dissertating

Source: https://gradschool.duke.edu/professional-development/blog/highly-recommended-workshop-surviving-your-dissertation-writing-groups

So, this is the 2nd mini-post of the week. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get 3 full posts done this next week, but if not, I’ll continue this mini-post format for the days/posts that I’m not able to do. Without further ado, on to the post:

Watching the Winter Olympics

I have quite a few things to catch up on today. I’m watching the Winter Olympics today. I’ll have it on in the background as I try to catch-up on all of the many things that I need to do today. While I like the Winter Olympics, I have to say that, on the whole, I’ve always preferred the Summer Olympics. My uncle was the real Winter Olympics fan with figure skating and the like. I got into sledding and luge sports (& some speed skating). While that hasn’t changed, I’ve “warmed up” to some figure skating/ice dancing, but it’s still not a fav. I have loved skiing, though, so I have plenty to get excited about. However, sports are a great background distraction when I have work to do, so I’ll definitely have it on in the background for the next two weeks.

Grading

I’ll be catching up with my grading. I’ve had two weeks of presentations and I’ve gotten behind on grading, so I’ll be using some of today to catch up and to get some assignments caught up. I’ll probably be using most of the weekend for this, but I can definitely grade one or two smaller assignments today.

Dissertating my Dissertation

My main focus today is to work on my dissertation. I’ve been working on it, but thanks to the start of school and my presentations, I’ve slacked off, but I need to get back on to it, so I’m planning on making today a “dissertating” day–where I work on my dissertation and really use today to get back into the “flow” that I had before school started back. I’m really enjoying my dissertation. What I’m realizing is that I just need to be consistent in my writing and my drafting of the work. This is really helping figure out how to write longer creative works (novels and such) because here’s the secret to writing long:

DON’T WORRY ABOUT MAKING IT PERFECT; WORRY ABOUT GETTING IT DOWN ON “PAPER.”

That’s a key! Too much worrying about making it match your vision rather than getting it down and working on it later to get it “perfect.” This is a crucial lesson for me personally, as I simply want to get my writing perfect–which may be the very reason that, while I’m a published writer, I’ve not yet written, let alone published, a novel.

Lessons for me to learn–which what school is all about!

Have a great weekend!

Sidney

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