So.  Another ‘p’ word for you.  Just now, I was thinking about commitment.  More specifically about commitment to big projects, making goals for oneself, etc.  Even love can be a goal to commit to.  For me, though, I’ve found that this year I’ve had too many things to commit to, yet because all of them are self-orientated tasks, it’s easier for me to give up on some.  Like my tarot card project over on DA.  While I haven’t given up on it, I’ve temporarily put it aside, leaving it half finished, and leaving me feeling disappointed in myself.  My writing project: the Curse Mark, is also on hiatus, only because I find myself unable to continue where I’d stopped.  I think my issue there though is that there were too many plots going on in my head and I didn’t think to draw out a picture to make it clearer.  I’ve started countless projects this year–some I have indeed completed and to which I felt much better doing so after, and others, of course, are still unfinished.

Completed

• Major Arcana of the Tarot Card Project
• Digital Manips of the Western Zodiac
• And Which Way Alice (I consider it a small term goal that required a lot of effort)
• Series Ender Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• Series Starters Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• Standalone Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• TBR Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• Colours Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• Contemporary Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club

Incomplete

• Minor Arcana of the Tarot Project
• My steampunk Airballons Digital Manip (still have to upload it)
• 2 requested/for fun wallpaper ideas for digital manips that I haven’t had the energy or inspiration to do yet
• The Curse Mark Project
• A number of short stories
• A number of poems
• ABC Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• Classics Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• 2015 Debut Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• Mythology Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• Graphics novel Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club
• Months Challenge for the Quarterly Book Club

Long Term Goals

• PhD thesis
• Writing Project: Golden Phoenix

Of everything, I feel like I did accomplish a few things this year, but at the same time, I don’t feel all round accomplished.  I had things I committed to, but didn’t and couldn’t complete (though for the reading, I still have a month to go!  But still, I know I overcommitted.  But how can you help it?  There are so many things you want to do and just can’t say no to.

 

My point is this.  Your thesis, as I’m already thinking about how it’d be like, and if I was to give it a metaphor, it’d be like a Marriage or a Relationship.  It’s a commitment.  It’s not something small or temporary like all the little commitments I’ve listed above.  You’re going to be in this relationship with your thesis for three years (full timers, longer for part timers).  You’re going to definitely hate it at one point.  Love it at other times.  Hopefully you’ll love it more than you hate it.  I’ve already talked about needing to have passion.  Well you need a lot of it.  You wouldn’t get into a relationship halfheartedly would you?  Or maybe you would, but you’d have to have some reason for doing so, right?  I decided to undertake my PhD because I want to teach at Uni.  I want to lecture on a topic I really love, and teaching in primary or high school just doesn’t really appeal to me.  There are other reasons why.  For one, my topic that I’ve chosen is something really close to my heart.  Hopefully, it’s not so close that I won’t be able to dissect it.  But it’ll be close enough that regardless of the arguments we’ll have together, the reluctance on my part to pull  my weight, and the ability of my thesis’ part to be less of a puzzle and more straightforward, I won’t stop moving forward.  I’m only 4 months in.  It hasn’t felt very long, yet my first milestone is coming up.

 

And sometimes, I’m afraid of the commitment.  If my goals listed above is anything to go by, I am both capable of being committed, yet liable to give up if overcommitted.  But I won’t break my pledge.  My pledge that I will see this all the way through even if all that’s left of me is a sack of bones.  Well hopefully there’ll still be flesh.  I’m hoping it’ll be flesh and a number of accomplishments I can be proud of (even though right now, my heart is already palpitating in fear of what I might not end up achieving.  I have so many goals lined up for the next three years, it’s like the lists above multiplied by three.)  If you’re like me, just a little bit of an overachiever, aiming too much for too many things, then maybe it’s time for us to stop.  Take a break.  Think.  Not give up, but just relax a bit!

 

In order to make this marriage work, I’ll need to plan better.   I can’t always study.  But I can’t always slack either.  I can’t make a big list of goals and expect to complete them without a clear plan.  I want to treat this relationship properly and give it all the attention it deserves after all.

 

That’s just it though.  How am I going to plan a writing schedule I can keep?  I don’t know.  It’ll be hard to plan three years ahead, but if I have a rough idea of what will happen when, I think I’ll be more reassured.  At the same time, it’s best if I don’t give myself a really tight schedule, because then stress will be cranked to the max and I will be exhausted.  I’ll also want to enjoy myself, attend conferences, work, have a social life. So, I have to figure it out and think carefully about my schedule.  But dayummmm it’s daunting!

 

And knowing myself, I know my reading and writing schedule will look a little crazy (the deadlines will be a little close and a little impossible but that’s why I make leeway time for myself so that I know I have this much more time to perfect it), but hey, I know I’ll be motivated by the pressure to at least turn out a rough, albeit terrible draft, and then take a break for a bit, because I’ll feel happier that I did something.   And something, is better than nothing!

 

P.s.  Sometimes I why I write these particular posts about my phd journey. But I suppose in my long winded messy way, I’m trying to express what I want to accomplish and do and advise on while on this journey as I’m going a long, but sometimes, I think I should just take my own advice lol!  Rather than spouting it out all on you guys!