Life After the Defense

..But wait, there's more!

I have made a promise: I am not allowed to feel sorry for myself until 2021. It took so long to get to this post-defense life that I have promised to learn from every life lesson I've gathered up until this point. For starters, no self-pity. I will trust myself and what God is doing through me. I will create realistically optimistic goals and follow through. I will conquer (myself) again and again.

My first realistically optimistic goal was simply to type out the notes that my advisor collected during my defense, which will be turned into a memo for my committee members. I noticed first that I was procrastinating on even pulling out the notes to look over them. I was able to overcome that first hurdle of getting started just by recognizing that I was avoiding the task. I promised myself a quick reward that would follow the transcription, just to get myself started. I framed my thinking proactively to take out the emotion: "Your goal is simply to transcribe. You are not connected to the task otherwise. Currently, you are simply a typist. Simply type." Something like that.

As I typed, I noticed myself thinking, "These comments aren't so bad." As I finished a page, I breathed a sigh of relief, noticing that my heartbeat had sped up. Really. It wasn't the typing, I realized. My issue was that I was reliving the defense as I typed. The intensity and the anxiety, "Is the next question going to be too hard for me to answer? Are they asking questions that will expose some horrible flaw in the document?" As I typed, those "what-ifs" had been pulled up from wherever I had buried them.

But, I remind myself, I've already passed. I never have to do this defense again. I am in celebration mode. I choose to work on these revisions now and let them be over with. Done. Forever. This is where I've wanted to be for so long. This is the good place that pulled me to it as I worked. Sure there's more work - the dissertation needs a little more polish, clarity, elbow grease. But all that mattered all along was that it was good enough.

Good enough! Back to work. :)

Another Dissertation House Post

Here's what I wrote on the D-House blog today:

-0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes!

Did someone page Dr. Alexis Williams? It is official. I still have a bunch to do in terms of revisions but I will do it as Dr. Williams. They can’t take it back and I don’t have to defend EVER AGAIN!! Whew! That was intense. But they don’t just hand these things out, so it is good that they challenge me to make it better.

This quote was on a card I received yesterday: “I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

So the important thing now is to keep moving. I will make sure to celebrate this day that I have dreamed of, feverishly-longingly-sometimes even hopelessly, but I will also keep moving because the journey is the goal. If the degree itself were the goal, we’d all just die at the end. Thank God I am here and I am still alive to do more each day!

Dr. Alexis Williams

#TeamWeDidItAndAreStillDoingIt

Printouts

I keep thinking of the beginning of the movie Cast Away as the dissertation is printing out.

Off to go bind. A little afraid that I missed something, but I guess that's inevitable. Someone just reminded me today that even published dissertations have errors. Woosahhhhh.

April Fool

At the end of February, I looked forward to the moment where I turned in my drafts of all of my chapters. I looked forward to getting feedback from my advisor and working on the final product. The thought of this made me feel elated. "I could actually be there soon!"

Today, though, as I worked on making changes based on my advisor's suggestions, I felt panicky and overwhelmed rather than excited to be so close to the finish line.

I realized that somehow I was losing perspective - losing sight of the big picture that God has shown me: that the vision is already realized that I had in February. That I have already come so much further than I thought I could, through what I believe to be a series of blessings and even miracles that I couldn't have imagined. I haven't even acknowledged all of them, come to think of it.

So today, I understood how close I came to being the April Fool. But instead of giving in, I was encouraged to push a little longer and resist the temptation to procrastinate. As a result, I'm a little closer to #Done.

Countdown: 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes

I just posted this to the Dissertation House blog:

My countdown app has reached 0 days, 0 hours, and 0 minutes, but I'm still counting down to Wednesday. However, I am going to have to wait on my committee to find out whether I will need to reschedule my defense date.

The good news is that I set a really ambitious date to Ph.inish, and I am SO close and that date could still happen. This is amazing given that, not long ago, I was convinced I couldn't complete this degree.

The I-Need-To-Go-With-The-Flow-But-Not-Bad news is that I am working up until the last minute and am having to request that my committee take less reading time than required before the defense date.

The great news is that I have been working consistently and taking care of my basic needs for food-rest-exercise in between working, and it has paid off in my resilience and balance. I can do this. Whether I do it on April 11 or on April 11+N or May # doesn't matter. I think my heart is slowing back to a normal rhythm now...

Three of the four committee members I was waiting for responses from have said yes to keep the current date.

Wooosaaaaahhhhh.

Onward.

This is what my friend just emailed me:

May God bless you with everything, be strong, stay encouraged! It will only be but for a moment. Keep persevering. God will keep you even when you feel you cannot be kept!

Isaiah 41:10  -- Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

This is what I think:
So good.

Nobody Warned Me

Nobody warned me that writing a dissertation causes so many papercuts and hangnails...

...Yes, that's the Batmobile.

Happy Writing.

First and Goal

There is this vision that floats through my mind when I get really stressed over everything I need to do to write these last two chapters. I am at the end of the football field and the team has been working hard to get close to this score. We've got enough time but it feels too close for comfort. I just have to remember all the work I've done and keep pushing closer and closer to that goal. I'm too close and I've put in too much investment in this dissertation game to turn the ball over now.

"The more insane I feel, the closer I'm getting," is what I just told my friend. I won't believe the lie that creeps in sometimes -

that it's too late,

that there's not enough time,

that there's too much to do,

that I don't know enough.

I've taken longer than most people, but I'm still here for a reason or two, and I will finish this race against myself. I'm even feeling more and more excitement at all of the reasons why I'm going to celebrate - being able to spend more time with friends and family, going to dance again, maybe even sleeping in here and there rather than pushing to get up at 5am every single day. Finally I'm learning, or, I'm being taught these lessons of how to push in the right way without judgment, how to have a better sense of authority over my circumstances. I've noticed my language change from "I'm trying to finish by..." to "I will finish by..." Some days I want to regress to "trying" but I won't do it.

It's done, just walk it through. Then walk the stage.

Phil 3:14