The Albatross

Doing a PhD is tough. You need to be brilliant. You need dedicated. You need to be able to focus and think about being brilliant and dedicated.

Regardless of your situation it's not easy. It's basically a big white dead sea bird hanging around your neck.

Add to that two kids, a husband, a job, house and family responsibilities, etc... and it becomes nigh impossible.

My batteries are running on empty. Actually I think they are fully empty... not quite sure what I am running on right now... momentum?

Well my PhD has been there, around my neck for close to a decade now. My albatross is beyond putrid to tell the truth. I want to get rid of it so badly but the more I try to pry it off, shake it loose, the more it seems to stick to me. And like any decomposing carcass it not only stinks but it is starting to affect everything else around me.

The mariner's companions are all dead... well the clinical member on my committee is in any case. That tells you how long this thing has been decomposing for....

For the past 3 months I have been coming to this office pretty much every day and what do I have to show for it? Maybe 2 new pages for my introduction. That's sad and stupid. I might as well stay home, go to the gym, learn Mandarin or something. It is such a big huge waste of my life.

Finishing this degree will give me an additional 3 letters after my name, a piece of paper (always useful to have in case you need to start a fire in an emergency) and the sense of satisfaction of finishing what I started. But that's about it. This research has basically no real impact. No one will read my work apart from my committee members. It will not change the world. Honestly it won't change anything.

It will not give me a better job.

It will not give me a better salary.

It will not significantly affect my life apart from getting rid of this decomposing sea bird carcass around my neck.

I tell everyone who will listen that I want to quit that I have nothing left in me to write. That this is going no where and only serving in making my life miserable. No one listens.

3 weeks ago I told DH that I was seeing my supervisor to tell him I was quitting. It was kind of a relief. DH convinved me to wait until we got back from vacation. Now he has forgotten all about it. It never even happened. He just wants me to finish but provides no support whatsoever. I don't think it's fair and I do resent him for it but I don't talk to him about it so it just festers.... my fault.

How long can you keep a dead albatross hanging from your neck? Even the mariner's ended up falling off by itself... I don't see how I can get rid of mine anytime soon...

So I keep climbing on this raft every day... watching the cursor blink at me...

I know I need to do something. I think anything would be better than this, yet I drift on...

Random thoughts: The Albatross as a metaphor comes from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge. It's actually a pretty cool poem. Iron Maiden also reprised his poem and DH wrote about that in one of his high school essays... I do not like Iron Maiden or heavy metal in general... Random thoughts as I said...