The First Half of Things

Hard to believe half the year is gone already, but there is goes. Six months ago I was planning a trip to Iceland and thinking that would be the highlight of my year (not to say it wasn't). But things move on, of course, particularly in my life.

And this year has brought changes, in only the first half of it. I'm now self-employed, starting up yet another blog, am much more focused on doing the things I enjoy in life, am querying a novel, am planning more travel (camping! I've never camped!), have taken up golf (again), spend more time enjoying life and less time fretting about it, have officially reached what I would call 'being fit', and have made a few decisions about the future that I am A-OK with.

I'm sure many others have accomplished more in six months. But though I planned for this year to be about 'CAREER', I decided fairly early on it actually needed to be about 'ME'. Last year was supposed to be about me. About learning about who I am now, about figuring out what I want from life, about adjusting to being post-PhD. But I wasn't able to start doing any of that until the end of the year, so instead of rushing through it (which one should never rush through discovering oneself), I decided to spend 2016 doing it instead. And I'm glad I made that choice. It's already taken longer than I would have thought, but at the same time, I'm already discovering more than I thought. I didn't think I was that different now, but I've realised I most certainly am. And I'm still changing. And that's okay.

The next six months are going to be ever more career oriented, but I feel like I am in a much better place to start those things. I feel like I know who I am now and what I want, and therefore I can  now figure out where to go to get it. And how to get there.

It's hard to take the time to figure your life out. We're told that's what high school or undergrad are for. But the truth of the matter is that no one I know actually figured their life out until after undergrad, and some people are still figuring their lives out. And that's okay. There's no magic age by which you need to have done this. Some people spend their lives changing and evolving constantly, and end up figuring their life out again and again. We change, as humans. We evolve. And that's how it should be. We are never quite the same as we were 10 years ago. Or even a year ago. But that is what makes being human so amazing, and why life is so exciting.

I'm not the same as I was a year ago (thankfully) and hopefully in another year I will be different too. Until then, I'm trying to do the best I can at figuring myself and things out as I go along.

Best Laids Plans of Writers and Academics

Let me just be honest: I gave up on December NaNo about December 3rd. I had the best of intentions, but like many things in life, even the best laid plans have to be sidetracked. December is the type of month that can either be great for me, or miserable, or both. This year, it's not been a particularly good month, and it never helps that I get anxious this time of year about the fact that another year is ending and I didn't do half the things I wanted to.

But that's normal. That's par for the course. But it makes writing hard. I also know from experience that I am much better in an empty house. I cannot write in public places. I also can't write very well in company. And I've had nothing but company this month, even more so than in November (and I managed NaNo with international travel!) It happens. I am slowly ploughing away at finishing the novel I didn't quite manage to finish last month (to be fair, 50k is rather short, and this one needs to be 70k).

That is my only goal this month. I am trying to be kind to myself and do only what I can actually manage each day, and not feel like a failure if I don't accomplish the To Do list. Or feel guilty for not being able to. I promised myself a year ago I would start doing this, and then life threw a loop-d-loop my way and this year has been full of (not always pleasant) surprises. Instead, I am making that promise again. Do only what I can. There are times to push oneself, and I'm generally pretty good at those, but for the rest of this year, I need to just be okay.

And that's enough for the busiest, craziest, most expensive month of the year. There is absolutely nothing wrong with baby steps. I think this might be what people mean when they talk about the year after the PhD.

Why Exercise is Bad for You

[Warning, this post contains no scientific facts or true health warnings.]

I've obviously been neglecting this blog. Clearly, this is something that can happen easily, when life gets in the way and the blog is not a main part of that life. And I'd really like to change that, but in order to do so I think I'm going to have to go off-topic a bit more than I have previously done. For one, my PhD is almost over, so I have very little to talk about there, and for seconds, well...let's just say that novelizing has been put on hold for the short terms so that I am not really writing much of anything. Needs must, sometimes, and all that.

But what I have been doing (besides finishing the aforementioned PhD and, you know, just recovering from three years of stress, anxiety and depression) is attempting to get back into shape. I've never been an avid gym goer, but I can honestly say that I was pretty fit in my 20s. I am no longer in my 20s, however, and like all things, age does have an impact. I also sat at a desk for three years (excepting the 800km I walked across Spain) and both my back and hips were definitely in a mood to complain about such things.

Because I don't do anything by halves (well, most of the time - cleaning is an exception), I joined a local fitness centre, got a personal trainer, and made myself accountable to going three times a week. And I've been really good about it for 8 weeks now (except last Wednesday, because I was in so much pain that walking down the stairs made me cry). However, for those 8 weeks, I have been in reoccurring pain in various muscles of my body that I didn't even know I had. My trainer knows I have them, though, and since I dictated to her what areas of my body I needed to work on, she's been working them.

But I suppose I had some vague notion that this would get easier. What I never took into account (having never worked out before), was that for the first couple of weeks you get your body to adjust to being active again...and then you start building it up. So you never really hit a plateau where it gets easier, because as soon as it gets easier, you make it harder. This is how one gets into shape. Apparently. I've been told.

So I've decided that exercise is really, truly, awfully, bad for you. There's no other explanation. It makes you tired, it makes you hurt, it makes you sleep for inordinate number of hours more than you used to, it makes you eat more (and crave bad things), and all around it makes you feel sort of a bit like you want to crawl into a hole in the ground and never come out again. Obviously, all of those things are horrible. And it's really not worth the effort just to get 'into shape'. After all, once you are in shape, you have to stay in shape, and that's just as much work! You have to do this for the rest of your life!

And this doesn't even get into all the other issues that come with getting fit. Your old clothes stop fitting and you have to buy new ones (and what an added expense that is). Also, you have to change your eating habits. Suddenly you have to eat certain foods at certain times of the day. And drink water at certain times of the day. And drink protein smoothies that taste worse than the worst fibre supplements on the market. Oh, and you have to do more laundry, because you can't wear your sweaty gym clothes more than once without feeling like your bathing in a sweat bath. And your hair looks awful. I'm not kidding; I haven't had a good hair day since I started this. It's either oily and sweaty from exercising, wet from showering, or poofy as all get-up from having been showered. And don't even get me started on how annoying it is to schedule your day around a fitness appointment. It ruins all your timing and just takes over your life.

So exercise is bad for you. Clearly. Definitely. Whoever next tells you you should go to the gym, you should kindly, but firmly, explain to them what a bad idea that is. Because it's totally, unequivocally, utterly, not worth the effort.

AT ALL.

[Except, it completely is.]

Stress and the Machine

Ostensibly I have seven novels on the go. Ostensibly. The reality is that two of them are with test readers, one of them is sitting untouched (for 8 months) on my hard drive, two of them are no more than a summary, and two of them are on my to-edit list this summer. So, actually, right now I have no novels on the go.

This would be grand in most circumstances. Particularly if those circumstances were: agent man is looking for more books to sell. But I don't have an agent, or a single book sold, or even time to query any of the books that are works-in-progress.

Instead, I am revising a thesis. There are few things I dislike more than academic editing. I can think of a few, but most of them involve death and dismemberment. I am not an avid editor, but I can just about manage with fictional editing; academic editing is another kettle of fish (barrel of monkeys?). I spent five months last year editing this thesis, and now I'm spending another five months editing this thesis, and in many ways I am simply taking what I already changed once and changing it again (sometimes back to what it was originally!). I am bored and disheartened and thoroughly, thoroughly, frustrated with the whole thing. As usual with editing, one edit changes five other things, or you remember that if you reword this you have to go find that other sentence 10k words later and reword it too. It's awful. But it's revisions, and just like editing a novel, it has to get done.

But in many ways, I'm lucky. I have nothing else to do with my time except plug away on this, so in many ways it is not very stressful. That's not to say it isn't stressful. It is. Anything on which your future career lies engenders stress. This is not, however, as stressful as the first round of edits was last autumn where my feeling was 'it's utter shite, what am I going to do?' Now it's a matter of considering 'well, they told me it wasn't shite, so I just have to take it from being acceptable to being good'. That means less stress as well.

I had no idea what I was doing the first time. No one does, the first time they write a thesis. I had about three different research questions and it took - what felt like - forever to figure out which one was the actual one (jury is still out on whether it was the right one). Even at the end I was still stressing about whether it was a good research question. So that stress is gone now, for which I am very grateful. And yet, some little niggling voice in my head still thinks maybe there was another way. I try not to give it much voice time.

So, I plug away, slowly but surely. When before I editing whole sections in a day, now I go one paragraph at a time. I am hoping that is a good thing. That I am being even more dedicated and careful. Time will only tell. What I do know is that it leaves me a lot of time for other things; things that reduce my lower stress even further and that I - mostly - enjoy.

Next week, look for a review of the Royal Ontario Museum's new blockbuster exhibition 'Pompeii: In the Shadow of the Volcano', and possibly some future ramblings about supervising and consultancy. Because apparently that is a thing I now do.

Yes well, that was unplanned

These things happen, of course. Sometimes I feel they only happen to me, but that's clearly not the case. The last month has been rather a constant schedule of changing plans, but I think it's finally starting to settle again (*knocks on wood*) so I can get back to actually knowing what I'll be doing for the next week. Which is about the only stress relief I conceivably get these days, so I've naturally missed it. I have nowhere to be in the next two months, and no pressing concerns other than my thesis (in fact, no non-pressing concerns that I currently know about). Hopefully that means I can get back on and remain on track until this is done.

In writing news, I am editing. Which is not really writing, per se, but yet it is. It is writing because there are some new words to put to paper, and yet it's not because it's really just rewriting sections to sound better, or moving sections around, or adding in references. To me, writing is sitting down and writing, editing is much more piecemeal, and for that reason, often more difficult. But today went alright, considering it was my first go, and I have a game plan for tomorrow. I think I'm going to very much take this one day at a time, but eventually I'll get there (by the 25th, one hopes). If I can manage a chapter every few days, we'll be fine. I haven't seen four of the chapters yet and have no idea what their corrections are like, but for the ones I have, 2-3 days per chapter is entirely doable. Particularly when I am no longer ill with the fugue.

Concurrently, because my Muse is entirely like that, I started yet another novel, for which I have my holiday relaxing to account for. I'll never actually write the thing but the idea is there if I ever get bored (or run out of more usable novel bunnies [plot bunnies, but more encompassing]). I know not to fight it now, anyways, and if my Muse wants to write about lost Rus princesses and weird versions of immortality, that's her business and I won't argue too much. I really would, however, prefer she devoted her time to the actual usable novel bunny instead, but one can't have everything. As long as she doesn't abandon me, we're okay here.

It is hard to believe it's October already. Of 2014. Really, this year has contained so many things, and has gone so quickly and yet so slowly at the same time. I really would like to be done with it, not least because I have high hopes for 2015 (well, higher). But right now there are two months left, plenty of miserable weather to contend with, and a thesis to finish, so I suppose I'll not have to worry about time passing too slowly.

Good heavens, golly and gosh. Or rather, bloody hell.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Let me tell you what my life has consisted of for the last 6 weeks.

Writing. Swearing. Writing. Sleeping. Procrastinating. Procrastinating. Procrastinating. [Not necessarily in that order or weighted to that number of times the word is repeated.]

In other words, I haven't had a lot to write about, and writing has sort of been the issue. It's not writer's block. Because I write something every day. It is, rather, a complete and utter lack of conviction towards writing this thesis. I'm over it. I really, really am. I just want it to be done already. I don't want to spend the next four months finishing it and then have to viva and then have to fix it. I want to be done already. I want to be employed and making money to start paying off that massive debt over my head. I want to live in my own place (rented though that will be). I want to get on with my life. I'm over the PhD. Three years doesn't sound like a long commitment (my undergrad was five), but I'm telling you now, at this stage in my life, three years is a bloody too long commitment. Too long chained to one thing with no way out. I knew that, theoretically, when I started this, but theory and practice are (as my thesis shows) two different things.

But I'm waxing lyrical and there's no point. Because I am not done. Because I may just have another 12 months of this to go. And there is no choice here. This isn't one of those crossroads in life where I get to decide which path I turn down. No, there is only one path, and no shortcut (or long cut) across country either. I'm all about forging new paths, but in this case there's a cliff on either side and I'm walking a very narrow bridge. It's go forward or go back. And how do you go back on life already lived?

[You don't.]

So, I haven't really had much of note to talk about with you, my readers. Each day is an effort to keep my head above water, and each night I am thankful to find my bed and rest (when I can). And that is going to be my life for the foreseeable future. I can't think past that, I really can't. Because for me, passed this doesn't exist in anything other than the most abstract terms, and I've never been good with abstract (art or theory).

I go on, each day. I get up, I write what I need to, I try not to hate it too much, I eat, I sleep, I go to the gym when all else fails, I try not to be too depressed, and tomorrow I get up and do it all again. 

Possibly, however, that's normal.

It be Summer

I have 9000 words of a chapter due in 11 days, and I can't for the life of me really tell you what it's about. I know what it should be about. I know what it needs to be about. But at this point, it's become more about manipulating the data to fit the chapter, so that this chapter aligns with the next chapter (which I don't have to manipulate the data for). So it's forced. I hate forced writing.

I need to write 800-1000 words a day if I'm going to finish this on time (in order to start the next chapter that has a rather firm due date).

I have been using a segmentation writing style suggested to me by a palaeontologist. I know, that sounds weird. But it's working. It automatically separates everything down into 500-1000 words segments in the first place, which makes writing easier. It also requires that the entire chapter be outlined in detail (down to, you know, 1.1.2.3, for example) before writing commences, so you know what goes where. I'm not usually this scientific when I write, but it appears to be helping me organise my thoughts. I think it's not very historical, or even really social science-y, but it's working, so I'm going to keep doing it. Hopefully it won't pose too many difficulties when it comes time to finalising the whole thesis before submission (in 5 months - gods help me).

Right now (nearly wrote that as 'write' now - clearly the PhD is having an adverse brain effect), I just need to start writing, but I'm really rather afraid this chapter is going to be as hard as I think it will be, and therefore cause me a lot of grief to write. And grief isn't something I want to deal with, I'm sure you can understand. I don't want to be slamming my head into the desk time and again for the next 11 days.

But I must. I really, really must. I have a PhD writing buddy now, and we are trying to motivate each other to hit our daily word counts, and suffer through together. I think it's helping a bit. I'm a bit more motivated, at least.

Of course, booking a hiking trip to the Peaks when I finish this chapter should help too...

Camino de Santiago

Walking is not a pastime for the majority of Canadians. We enjoy outdoor sports, even in the coldest depths of winter, but Canada is a huge country and before there were automobiles, there were horses. Canadians drive to work (or occasionally bike if it’s close and the weather is decent), to the stores, to their holidays. Most of us learn to drive as soon as we turn old enough and never look back.

Part of that is a horrible public transportation system, which doesn’t encourage leaving the car at home. Mostly though, it’s just that everything is a lot further away than in Europe. Canada is wider across than the entirety of the European continent, from west Ireland all the way to eastern Ukraine. Even the grocery store is a long way away from my house.

I heard about the Camino in 2005, when Heather Dale released Road to Santiago. I learned that Santiago was a place in Spain, that it was a pilgrimage site, that it was old, and that it was part of a much larger world of a time in Europe when nearly everyone walked everywhere. At the time I thought it interesting, but not particularly intriguing. I did a brief search on Santiago and the pilgrimages of old and then…put it out of my mind. In 2005 I didn’t walk anywhere, much less across an entire country.

In 2011, Emilio Estevez released The Way, but I didn’t see it until February 2012 when I rented it off iTunes. I rented it because it was Martin Sheen and James Nesbitt and I’m easy like that. I could watch those two in practically any movie and enjoy it. But I remember, from the first few minutes of the film that something about it spoke to me. I usually go in for action or maybe rom-com, but this one grabbed me from the start. I find most dramatic movies overly sappy and can’t get invested in them. This one, for whatever reason, was different. From the DVD menu with its map background and the first few humorous moments of the film, I was hooked. Even the music was perfect.

I watch it now and even the first notes of the soundtrack bring me to tears. It is beautiful and perfect, in a way so understated as to be almost ignored by the world. But this little film has changed so many people’s lives. So many people I have met have seen this film and made a choice that will forever shape their existence. How many films can say that? It did not set out to do that. It set out only to tell the story of a father and son, but somewhere along the way it told the story of the Camino too. And people flocked to it.

From the opening credits sequence to the last stirrings of the piano on the shores of Finisterre, it is beautiful.

And so was the Camino. Amidst pain and suffering there was joy and beauty. Life, in but a snapshot of time. Time to live each moment and to reflect each day. And perhaps the entirety of the Camino is very simple; perhaps the need and chance to walk it, is the only true miracle.

There is no other experience like walking across a country. An afternoon’s hike, or a weekend walking holiday do not compare. They are holidays, they are enjoyment and peace and involve little sacrifice, little suffering. Otherwise why would anyone do them? They are choices. The Camino is, in many ways, not a choice. It was not for me. I did not choose to walk it; I simply knew I had to. One clear moment of understanding in my life. I was meant to do this. Whether by fate or a higher power or simply by the desire to experience life that drives us all, this was always going to be my way.

Spain is a beautiful country. From north to south, east to west, it is in turns stunning and sad, breathtaking and unassuming. I had never been before. I may never go again. The Camino is part of Spain and yet not part. Those that walk the way are not visitors to Spain; they are not the tourists of Madrid and Barcelona. They are not there for a holiday. They are not even really there to experience Spain. They are there to experience the Camino and the Camino is not Spain. It flows through the country like the Mississippi flows through America, but it does not define Spain. It existed before modern Spain existed and it will exist, in some ways, long after Spain is gone. It sits in a time apart.

The Camino is not characterized by politics, or these days even religion. It does not care what your creed is, or your birth, your social standing or your mistakes. The Camino simply is. It is a line through the sand, but not a border. It is there only in your mind as a challenge and a task. Each day, each moment, something to be experienced and overcome. Each moment treasured before it is put aside in favour of the next. But the moments never pass entirely, only flow one into another, one mile into another, until the end. But the end is not really the end. You emerge in Santiago a different person from when you started, and you will forever be such. You carry the Camino with you each moment of the rest of your life, in memories and friends, and in your own self.

The Camino is a life changing experience. It cannot be otherwise. There is nothing quite like it, no other walking trail in the world quite the same as this one, as they are not the same to others. Each person walks their own Camino. There is no single path, but through every footfall that you take, you carve your own, leaving behind a trail to guide others.

At no other time in your life, except for on hiking expeditions, will you wake up in a new place each day. Nowhere else will you see a landscape change below your feet with each step you take. No other way will you experience hunger and exhaustion, pain and struggle on such monumental scales and revel in them.

It has been twelve months since I set off on my Camino. Not a day goes by that I do not wish I was on it again. Even on the worst days there were moments worth remembering. I do not know if my life will ever allow for another Camino, but I know that whether it does easily or not, I must walk another. It is a desire that sits in my heart and always will. There are some once in a lifetime experience that should never happen just once. This is one of them.

Perhaps I will see you on the Way.

As Always…Apologies

I meant to update last month, but I've been taking care of another blog and my posting creativity went towards updating it.

February is always a bad month in academia. You would think, because it is short, that it would be the best month, but it isn't. In academia, Christmas holidays always last partly into January, so by the time life resumes normally, the month is already partly over and your post-New-Years-resolutions can usually get you through the rest of it. But by the time February rolls around you've run out of motivation. It's cold and grey outside (well, in any country I've ever lived) and you know you have deadlines to meet and work to do, so even if it was sunny you can't be out enjoying it. You know the spring (Easter holidays) are still a rather long way away so it's hard to look forward to them.

February is like Thursdays. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

But now February is over. And I had high hopes for March. March 1st always puts me in a really good mood. Except this year. This year March 1st did not put me in anything other than a really depressed and distracted mood. And that's not a great way to start the 'spring'. I have 6000 words to write by March 15th and I have no desire to write a single one of them. At all. Not just the fact I'm unmotivated, but I can't even focus my thoughts into a single sentence. I know if I find my drive I can get them written, though they won't be great. But, honestly, I don't actually care. I'm 9 months away from finishing my PhD and I just don't really care anymore. And I know that's normal. I know I've reached that 'I've been at this too long' stage and that I need to get over it and move forward into the 'let's just finish this' stage. I know that.

But I really don't want to. A lot changed two days ago. And yet nothing did. And I'm sort of struggling to come to terms with those two opposing views and the future. And in light of all that soul searching and emotional baggage, writing a PhD is getting lost in my mental shuffle. But these things happen. Especially in my department (2013 was a bad year for many people, 2014 is going to be my bad year apparently). Everyone made it through. I will too. But right now, it's hard to see the end, despite the fact that it's getting ever closer.

There's a conference this week. I am hoping talking to like-minded academics and hearing how passionate they are about their work will get me going again. One can hope. Otherwise…December is a long time from now, but August is a mite too close.

Happy Christmas

Hello All (-three of you)!

It's been a long month, let me tell you. December, when you are not a regular attending classes student always feels long. It used to feel interminable when I worked in retail, because December was, you guessed it, 30 days long and I usually worked every single one of those. If they could have figured out how to legally keep the store open for Christmas Day, they would have.

But as a PhD student, I've discovered, December feels even longer. Because instead of knowing that when January comes you will have virtually no hours to work, you realise that come January you will be just as busy as you are now. And you will probably have a deadline (as I do). Holidays and Christmas are slightly ruined when you are facing stress and looming word counts.

Which is why I am already excited about next year. I wrote 'hand in thesis' on my calendar for December 12th and I aim to stick to that. Which means that, leaving a day to pack, I can be on a plane for December 14th. Which is when my holidays will start. And they will go until January 14th, because after all of this I deserve a month off. I will not be working. I will not be online. I will not be job searching. I will be…I have no idea what I'll be doing but it won't involve writing or reading. It will probably involve a hell of a lot of television and maybe that computer game I've been saving.

But that is not this Christmas. That is 12 months away (11 months, 20 days) and this Christmas I have 8000 (7200) words to write before January 4th. And they aren't easy words. This is not the easy chapter I'm writing. This is not the 'this author said this and this author said that and this contributes this to the field'. No, no, this is the hard chapter. It's probably the hardest chapter of the thesis, in fact, or at least part of it is the hardest. And I have 11 days left to write it. I am taking tomorrow off by virtue of the fact that I am expected at a party for most of the day and then there is telly on. But come Boxing Day morning I have a word count to hit (today I am editing the 800 words I've written to make sure they make sense, otherwise there's no point in continuing along with it on the 26th).

Anyone tells you that doing a PhD is fun, ignore them. I can't take holidays anymore. I try to take a day off and I feel guilty and stressed for not doing work and then I do work anyways. I have to forcibly take myself away from the computer to stop. I am tired of looking at a computer screen. My wrists hurt from typing. My eyes hurt from looking. My back is killing me from sitting. And I have twelve more months of this.

Today I don't like being a PhD student, even if I still like my thesis.

Happy Christmas