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2020 November 12
I had a rough start today. I woke up at 12:27 for a 12:30 class. Class itself was useful and I paid attention. We were given examples of questions that we might expect on our qualifying exam. We were given free time to troubleshoot our measurement instruments afterwards. The best part of the day was that I tuned into a virtual symposium, which I had no idea about until I saw a Tweet about it. I saw a panel presented by 3 scholars who use historical discourses analysis, which I had never considered before. Their work was really interesting, specifically because I am fascinated (and infuriated) by the way that people who enter the social work profession pat themselves on the back CONSTANTLY without thinking critically about the ways in which social workers have been facilitators of and instruments to socially control various groups of people. I’ve always wanted to figure out a way to intellectually discuss this but didn’t know what method would be best suited for it... Though, during the Q&A session, someone asked the panelists why they think historical analysis is undervalued in social work academia.
This came in such a timely manner, though, because I was just discussing with a friend about how my research interests and questions are certainly more attuned to qualitative methods rather than quantitative.
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2020 November 11
Today, I spent a good amount of time working on my paper, due Friday. I participated in class enough (by my standards), and I played Valorant (of course). I read 1.5 papers for the scoping review. All in all, an okay day, though I wish I had actually done more reading for the R&R.
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2020 November 10
I had originally planned to work on a paper (due this Friday) prior to class but instead had a relatively relaxing morning to myself. I say relatively because there was a creeping underlying feeling of guilt/shame regarding my not working on the paper...
Class was the same as usual. I presented (volunteered to go second), then proceeded to zone out for the rest of the time. I brought this up in therapy a little later. It seems that my only way of focusing is when I’m directly involved (e.g., presenting) or when I’m eating. I was telling my therapist how I feel like I’m an animal because I’m keepiing myself focused with the most basic positive reinforcement (food) but I can’t sustainably do that because (1) I’d be overeating and (2) I need to wear my Invisalign all day... We also talked about my failure to chunk/block time out in my schedule for certain tasks. I’m going to try and set an ongoing 30 minute timer throughout the day to help me contextualize and relate my work flow with the actual passage of time.
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2020 November 09
I attempted (probably for the 10th time in my college/graduate school career) to block out time in my schedule according to the diifferent tasks/projects that I have going on, to no avail. The original schedule was supposed to be as follows:
9am: Wake up, shower, eat breakfast and have coffee -> Overslept and woke up at 10 instead
10am-11:30am: Work on intervention facilitator manual -> Finished this half an hour early
11:30am-11:45am: Find people to take a survey for class -> This took much longer only because I had to translate my survey into a Google Form first.
12pm-1:30pm: Lunch, plus review methodology for a scoping review project -> This did not take 1.5 hours, but it was pushed to a later time because of the survey issue, above.
1:30pm-3pm: Read for revision -> This straight up didn’t happen...
3pm-5pm: Work on presentation for class tomorrow -> I started this at 3pm and finished a little before 5pm.
5:30pm-7pm: Speaking at program open house -> The only thing that was on schedule and accurately timed because it was planned and executed by an external party.
I really wish that I could structure my day around time blocks, but as a task-oriented individual, perhaps it’s just better to start each day with a list of things to do. On the other hand, I rely - heavily - on my Google calendar (for the organization but also the visual aspect of it), and I would like to see my tasks there, but I am terrible at estimating how long certain tasks will take me. I’m not even systematically wrong in any one direction (too short or too long) -- I’m just wrong... I’m really frustrated. Nonetheless, I did accomplish quite a number of things today. I just wish I could stick to a work schedule like a normie, though.
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2020 November 08
I woke up incredibly late today, but that’s okay because all I had planned for today was to move my partner back home. Spent the rest of the day cleaning my room, preparing for the week, and winding down with some games.
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2020 November 07
Today was a rest day -- my partner and I went out into the city to celebrate his birthday with his friends. It was a lot of fun. It’s really touching to see his high school friends put in so much effort to coordinate a celebratiion for him. Somenoe was in charge of grilling/food, another baked a cake, another hosted, and everyone else offered a helping hand. I felt bad that all I did was drag him along for the surprise, but II suppose we all had a part to play.
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2020 November 06
I overslept a meeting by about 40 minutes today, and in classic generalized anxiety disorder fashion, I decided it was better to not show up at all than to make a scene of entering the Zoom call 40 minutes late. I can’t say I’m proud of that decision.
After that, I checked a work email and realized that I missed an email about a phone call today... I confirmed it by email 10 minutes before it was supposed to happen. I had to tell the person that he wasn’t eligible for our study, and I felt bad because had shared that he never qualifies for LGBTQ studies since he’s considered too old. It sounded like he wanted to share his story, but no one wanted to listen to it. I knew it wasn’t my fault that he didn’t fit the criteria for this particular study, but, damn, it felt bad being the bearer of “bad” news.
From 3 to 4, I gathered literature with a friend for the paper revision that we have going on. I later discussed this with my partner, but the reviewers for our paper are from a discipline that uses a lot of critical theory, and this is uncharted territory for me. I have always wanted to delve deeper into Freire’s, Lorde’s, Crenshaw’s, and others’ work, but I don’t feel enough of an “activist” to even be including words such as “homonationalism” in my lexicon. It makes me feel like an imposter. I am terribly afraid of co-opting this language, though I know I have to read and write about it to feel familiar with it in the first place.
I spent the rest of the day gathering more literature, thinking about all the different projects I have going on, and playing some Valorant. We won one of the games using a strategy that C9 used, and it felt really effortless since we won solely based on outplaying the enemy team so... strategically. Games really hit differently when you use your mind and play intentionally, huh?
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2020 November 05
The election (and general state of the world) is increasingly taking its toll on me. The term “fatalistic suicide” by Durkheim seems to feel more and more relevant to me over the course of the past year...
Today, I sat in class (zoned out a lot) for about an hour and a half, then had a phone call with my supervisor. We touched base on some of our ongoing projects. I took my partner and sibling to the pet supply store and have a lovely conversation with the manager, who gave me tips on how to introduce a new cat to the resident cat. The rest of the night was semi-productive, with additional scoping review progress (collecting more articles and continuing on a figure draft). I played some Valorant and had a few good games but lost steam by the 3rd or 4th match.
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2020 November 04
Started the day off with a quick trip to the grocery store so that I’d have breakfast. Spent the hour and a half after cramming readings on Critical Race Theory for class.
Class itself felt very morose. No one felt like being there, with the election and all. We made it through though and were actually let out early.
Played a single game of Valorant, lost, then worked on a paper that’s due next Friday. Also started to work on a paper that I and a mentir hope to submit for publication.
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2020 November 03
Follow-up from yesterday: I did not end up reading for class last night. I did that this morning instead, right before class. Thankfully, I’m usually able to make connections between the readings for this class and the class itself, so I didn’t need to expend too much energy trying to understand the papers.
Attention span in class today was probably a 6.5/10, as opposed to the usual 4/10. It helped to snack during the beginning half. I was able to pay attention while I munched on crackers with a goat cheese/fig butter mix, but when I ran out of snacks, the situation deteriorated. I started to doodle. I became so engrossed in the doodling that I completely tuned out every word being said... I need to figure out another way to stay present because I can’t possibly snack for 2 whole hours each time I have a class.
Afterwards, I had a Facetime call with a friend and made some progress on a paper that’s due next Friday.
Today was a special occasion, so I was out for dinner for about 3 hours.
Ended the day with some Valorant games and light sketching for a treatment protocol that I’m working on.
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2020 November 2
Today started off somewhat roughly. I was woken up by a phone call from my supervisor because I was late to a Zoom meeting. To be honest, I had completely forgotten about it, so I didn’t prepare my materials for the meeting. Last week, we had arranged to meet at 11am today, but I never actually put an entry into my calendar, so I was under the impression that my first and only meeting today would begin at 1:30. I was embarrassed and ashamed, but the meeting turned out okay. We accomplished our goals, and we outlined the next steps for the project (a review of the existing literature on LGBTQ+ migrant experiences).
A couple hours later, I had the second meeting. We discussed reviewer comments on a paper that I had helped with over the summer. The feedback was... critical... but much appreciated. I always love perspectives informed by critical theory. I wonder if I should’ve pursued a different discipline sometimes.
Right after the meeting, I attended (passively) a research seminar on trauma exposure and mental health needs among adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system. I have no comments on the presentation itself -- mostly, I thought about whether or not I wanted to be in the presenter’s position in the future. Is academia something I want to pursue? Could I even do it? I don’t even know. What will the job market even look like post-COVID? What are my other options? During this existential crisis, I finished and submitted an assignment for my statistical methods class.
I had therapy today as well. We discussed my political anxiety, how I’ve given up on this country, and my trauma responses to gaming.
I just finished downloading and uploading articles for that first project (scoping review). Next steps are to figure out what information we should collect about the articles and how to synthesize that information.
I’ll probably spend the rest of the night reading what I can for tomorrow’s class.
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