One year down... so many more to go.

I did it - I have successfully finished one year of doctoral study! Let me tell you, those last couple of weeks there were just a question of trying to survive... Survival included no days off from spring break until the end of finals and my first ever migraine. Clearly, I'm getting that this whole doctoral training thing is not for the faint of heart (or brain). 

I took all of last week off to recover and seriously needed every bit of it. I couldn't handle listening to music for a few weeks there and haven't had coffee in almost a month (with the exception of that ill-fated migraine day). There was so much I was trying to synthesize and so much that needed to be accomplished in a small period of time, that I couldn't take any additional stimulation. Hell, the last day of finals, I ended up walking halfway across campus because I didn't know what to do with myself and then working out for a while before I could even take the nap I desperately needed. This is actually the first time I'm writing anything more complicated than a text message since finals ended. 

I was tired. 

It wasn't until I started dreaming again a couple of nights ago that it occurred to me that I'd stopped doing even that. My brain was fried and I hope not to go back to that again. Part of it is my own fault - I turned one of my final papers into a draft of a dissertation prospectus that I was certainly not ready to write but did anyway. It's not unhelpful - I have my progress review meeting this week and plan on talking to the committee about my initial dissertation thoughts to see if I'm heading in the right direction. 

Still. 

This is the first day I'm daring to get any work done and my poor little still-singed brain isn't super happy about this post, much less all the other things I will have to work on soon (like a grant application, a manuscript, and who knows what else at work when I make my way back into the office). 

It'll be like this for a while, I get that. I also get that rest is important. But as I make my way through this post, I'm also wondering how I'm going to do this summer. We've taken someone already biased toward action and put me on a steady diet of intellectual speed and academic angst. 


Awesome. 


And still, I'm plotting the books I'll read this summer once my brain is up to it, including what I'll reward myself with if I make it through the books I already own. I might be hooked...