Improvements

Have I mentioned my summer goals in here yet? I don't think so. Let's review!

1.) Write for 10-30 minutes (at least) each day. EACH. DAY. This includes Sunday. This means no breaks. Unless something dire comes up, and it shouldn't.
2.) Read a book a week. (So far I've read two books. I'm on schedule with when I started, which was a week after summer started. That means if I have extra time I want to squeeze in an extra book.) I'm almost done with my third one. I'm breaking them down into sections so I don't overwhelm myself. (The current book is 40 pages a day, which is doable.)
3.) Read an article a day. This one's lofty and not really happening yet. I've read three articles this summer! That's way less than one a day. (And this is a weekday only goal.)
4.) Do an hour of stats a week. I haven't done any yet but I'm really only 2-3 away from my goal. I'm planning on going into the office to work on this tomorrow. That's also been my plan all week so hopefully it'll actually happen tomorrow.
5.) Easy, medium, and hard. A professor suggested I have one of each of these to work on each day so that I can break from one and still work on something else to be productive. This goal isn't as easily defined so I can't really fail at it, as long as I do something for the day. So far my writing's been my "hard" and the others just kind of work themselves out.

I bought a book (this one!) to help me write. It's titled Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day and while it's not exactly targeted towards me, I'm finding it helpful. The key points (thus far) are as follows:

- WRITE! (every day)
- Write first. (write before you do anything else)
- Don't focus on what you're writing (at first) just work into the habit of continuously writing.
- Try to get addicted to writing. Find out where you like to write, when, with what environment (music playing, at the coffee shop, home alone, etc).
 - Build up to writing more and more every day. Start with 10-15 minutes and move forward from there.
 - After you get addicted, set a goal (page goal, hour goal, idea goal) for each day and work until you get there. I think I'm going to work for the page goal. The author says a 3-6 page a day goal is good.
 - The goal at this step is just to WRITE. The 3-6 pages might end up getting trashed, but they'll get you thinking about the ideas/etc that will form your work.
 - Develop a zero draft. This draft won't be shown to anyone but might include some things that could be "right or wrong."
 - Build from the zero draft to your first draft.

I've taken a break from the book to work up to my zero draft and my first draft. So far I'm just working on writing consistently and allowing myself to write without criticizing it. One of my big hang ups is thinking that everything I write is crap. Hopefully this will help kick that out of my head.

I'll build on this next time, I just wanted to write this down. Let you know how it's going.

Blah

I've got a plan for being productive over the summer.

I want to: read a book a week, an article a day, write for 10-30 minutes a day, and work (part time) 20 hours a week. I'm finding the first and last of my goals easily attainable. I've got lots of free time and it's too hot to enjoy being active outside most of the day so I'm doing well with my reading and working. Well, reading of books anyway.

I like that I'm reading a story. That I'm having a conversation about a topic. It feels like a long documentary. It's enjoyable.

I've got a mental block when it comes to writing and reading articles. I'm afraid that I won't have anything valuable to say. That when I write, my work will be disputable and elementary and worthless. That the argument I want to make has been made before and better. That I have nothing new to bring to the table. That I'm good at reading and learning but bad at creating and growing.

I'm going to be in my third year of grad school soon. I remember coming in to the program and meeting all of the then third years and being impressed with how much they knew, how productive they were. In your third year here students take a teaching prep course. I'm really excited about the idea of teaching but feel like I'm pretending to be knowledgeable enough to scrape through school.

I feel like a fraud. I do really well in my classes but I can't do the research (well) on my own. I know this is a hurdle I've got to mentally overcome but I'm not there yet. I haven't mustered up the strength to push through this insecurity.

New URL, Same Inattention

Happy June!

So, here's the deal. My blog was created using blogger but it was created using an account I don't use much anymore (ica.29@hotmail.com) and I couldn't change it so that it would be associated with my regular Google monopoly of goodness. That was annoying. In an attempt to line up all my eggs in my basket, I've moved all that stuff to this new address, now associated with the email address I use almost exclusively now (jessicaseberger@gmail.com).

I can't promise I'll update more but I will not have to finagle my way into my blog account to post so here's to hopes and dreams.