So, I'll just talk about one irrelevant thing, my failure to continue posting to my "Project 365+1" blog last year.
Interestingly enough, do you know which was my very last post?
Check it out.
(and I'm giving the specific post link, although if you click in the blog link today, it'll get you there. I hope, against hope, to post again someday, so I have to give the proper link).
So, what do you think of this?
To add suspense, the rest of the post is after the cut.
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Are you surprised that the very last thing I posted to that blog, with the date of April 16, 2008, is a photo of my dissertation defense?
I kind of was when I first realized that, but then, I started thinking of all the reasons why this coincidence could be highly symbolic.
My life stopped that day, in a sense, because after that joyous moment ("Wonderful" is the title of that day's blog post) came the pits of despair of the grueling revision process. The formatting and the submission to the graduate school were even worse nightmares I blogged about in great detail, step by step until the live blogging the upload. The first resubmission, the second revision, and, finally, the acceptance. And then, after telling you that I thanked you, my online friends, in my acknowledgments, I never blogged about the defense or the dissertation again, I just posted my failed contribution to Mama PhD.
Of course the practical reason for no more pictures in that blog, though, is really prosaic -- we had no functioning camera from June (after my parents left and took their camera) to early August, so I really didn't have what to post. I couldn't get the outlet cable to charge the camera and it took K two months until he finally got around to fiddle with it.
Regardless of the actual reasons, however, I still think it's an interesting metaphor for my life. Photography and making photo albums online is one of my obsessions, something that my dad constantly tells me that I have to stop thinking about. I've been really disappointed with myself that I didn't stick to posting photos daily in that blog. I love doing that and I wish I could keep on doing it.
There's something inside myself that has been keeping me from doing it. I want to try not to spend so much time on these things, even though I really love photos and feel a profound satisfaction when I get to share them.
On the other hand, defending the dissertation was one of the only "nice" things derived from my dissertation. The commencement was OK, but I only had one friend come. What does it mean, anyway, to have them call your name and get your diploma? So I didn't even find the time to write about it in the blog, and to post pictures (here).
I've blogged several times about the "uselessness" of the PhD and my qualms with academia. So, I guess it's very fitting that the photo blog, at least for now, is "stuck" on my defense day.
I need to move on, leave it behind, catch up, begin posting again, and, hopefully, I will.
Life will go on.
I would be like you, unable to NOT read into the symbolism behind that last picture.
ReplyDeleteI know things are hard, and you feel it was all in vain, but you did it! You wrote your diss. You defended it. You *got it done* all while being a great mother, wife, writer, thinker, and a great YOU. No one can take this away from you ever, so you have to hold onto that.