September: or the Sacking of Ismarus

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Ah, September… brand new Trapper Keeper notebook, cool looking pencil case, and an optimistic attitude. You’re back to seeing people on a regular basis, eating in the cafeteria with those soft pretzels you love, having meetings with professors, teaching a class or two. You are unstoppable! And since it’s been so long since you’ve felt the sweet embrace of a regular school structure, you think it may be time to Sack the City of Ismarus.

Untroubled by Poseidon’s storm, Odysseus and his men were going strong after the Trojan victory. Just like you who have been swigging Starbucks and noshing on Yoplait, sequestered off in your quarters all summer to get some serious writing done; Odysseus’ crew was cramped into twelve ships and hopped up on pent up rage. Time to go looting in a strange city. Or in your case offering to head up a task force on curriculum reform, marching off to three or four meetings a day, co-writing an article with your advisor, and volunteering to T.A. a class even though you’re already teaching three others. And why not? You’ve got your strength back. It’s September. You know how to work it in September.

But let’s finish that story at Ismarus. It seems Odysseus’ men were so busy looting that they did not listen to orders to high tail it back to the ships. As a result, 72 men were killed. The good news is that looting several teaching experiences and laying waste to a few too many unnecessary meetings will not result in the death of you or your colleagues. The bad news, as you know, is that it could result in the demoralizing postponement of your graduation.

Let me be the first to comment that beginning of the year optimism is not a bad thing. It’s huge improvement over free-floating anxiety and chronic insomnia. What could be argued is that September’s energy aphrodisiac needs to managed.

The question is how does one reign in one’s passion to loot without being horribly demoralizing and tunnel visioned in the process?

The Rebel versus the Check-Offer

At this point one might remind oneself that different people have different work styles; one no better than another. This is true, but only in theory. In practice, there are many different work styles but only a small few actually result in work. To simplify this matter, let me reduce all work styles to two basic types: the rebel and the check-offer.

The rebel avoids schedules, rules, and, unfortunately, the writing process in general. The rebel is highly superstitious; believing that the near genius paper she wrote three years ago after pulling many consecutive all nighters is proof that the last minute is the best time to get anything done. Possibly because of this tendency towards superstition and procrastination, the rebel is also highly creative—able to concoct interesting ideas fueled only by simple carbs. The rebel also feeds off summer and its concomitant loosey-goosey schedule.

The check-offer on the other hand can work for an hour, take a break to go to the gym and pay some bills, and then work for another hour. The check-offer knows that getting something down on paper means that she is moving ahead. She also knows that getting something down on paper is not the time to go through an elaborate second guessing matrix where one begins to doubt every doctoral degree decision ever made starting with the structure of one’s last paragraph and ending with the topic of one’s thesis. The check-offer is what thousands of summer rebels dream of becoming once September hits.

However, the habits of the check-offer require a steady hand. At the heart of the check-offer’s work ethic lies the ability and, in fact the need, to check things off a list, and then, and importantly, TO FINISH DOING ALL ITEMS ON THE LIST. So it would follow; the key is to make a very short list.

The ‘short list’ idea leads to the theory that writing a dissertation needs to become writing several term papers each with heavily related topics. This means that these papers will be easier to write since there will be much overlap between them. Plus, you know how to write a term paper. You’ve written a million of them. How long have you ever spent writing a term paper? Two weeks? Maybe. Not even.

Now I know what you’re saying, but data, but analysis, but approval from my advisor, but halted for one of many of a variety of different reasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just write a 7-10 page paper that’s related to your dissertation topic. It will not take you long and you will be able to live a full life while writing it. Now go forth and write, and make sure you check back with us and let us know how it went!

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