Temporary Relief

First, I want to express my heartfelt thanks for all the support I've received since I wrote the "rainy" post. I forgot to mention in it that after the Saturday night rain, Sunday was a gorgeously sunny day, but the metaphor stayed with me nevertheless. It's still metaphorically raining in my life, but, to cite another clichéd optimistic song, I know that "The sun will come out tomorrow."I just think that this "tomorrow" will take a while to get here.

I just wanted to let you know that this morning I finally faced my problem head on and emailed the committee member back. I'm glad I waited nearly two weeks to respond because the time elapsed has allowed to put things into perspective. I finally emailed my advisor about this yesterday and he thought that the committee member's suggestions were actually helpful! So I made an extra effort to try and see some good in them and this helped me write a response.

I still don't think I over-reacted to the feedback since this person's words were quite strong (as they usually are -- I included some examples in this post, under "First Reader"). I was debating whether I should summarize them here, but I don't want to concentrate on these negative statements about my work. I want to address them, if at all possible, and then move on.

Questions for all those former and current dissertators out there:

- Were you able to have a nice, supportive, relatively cohesive committee?

- Isn't there a way to make this whole process less painful?

- Why -- I always wonder -- do we have to finish the dissertation and just HAVE to get sick and tired of it because of all the struggles we need to go through in order to finish?

I was hoping that I could finish and not just "loathe" my work and not be able to go back to it. I was hoping I'd still be able to feel excited about it to the very end and cheerfully go to work immediately (or soon thereafter) to turn it into a book. My hopes are just fading away. I just may have to compromise too much of myself and the hard won -- but still extremely fragile -- confidence that I know anything, that I'm contributing something and, as a result, I may just feel utterly spent and unable to go back to this project. I so didn't/don't want this to happen!!

I feel slightly relieved after sending this email, but I know that the worse may be yet to come. I want to steel myself so I can withstand it, but I just don't know how to do it. I'm just too sensitive, and I don't necessarily want to change since I value who I am. I have already developed more of a thick skin that I even thought I would, but even that may not be enough.

Well, brace yourselves, I'll let you know when I get an email back. Meanwhile, I'll be posting about lots of other things that I've wanted to post, but haven't had the chance to do it yet.