Friday, September 23, 2016

Wearing two hats = times of awkwardness and discomfort

Think of the literal feeling of wearing two hats.  It's weird and uncomfortable, right?  Now in the metaphorical sense, I'm just referring to teaching full time on the tenure track and trying to finish a dissertation.  Parenthood?  Of course that's a hat.  So I guess you could say I wear three, but anyways...

I'm feeling somewhat abandoned by my grad program, and my place of employment is now my new home.  Everyone there is incredibly supportive of the hats I wear.  However, just the nature of the work and the teaching load makes it difficult to wear these hats in the most even and balanced way possible. I try to take one full day per week to work on my dissertation, but it's sometimes difficult to guard that time.  Of course, I want to spend even more time during the other days, but the last few weeks have been crazy to say the least.

I sometimes feel like I'm "cheating on"  my dissertation-- I don't give it enough time; I miss it.  I see my goal starting to slip away, but really, is it slipping away, or is that just my perception?


I don't know who reads this blog, but I'm curious- if you're out there, do you wear different hats?  Are you working full time in an academic or non-academic job while dissertating? Or, have you done this in the past? I'd love to hear from you!