please send help

[bedlamsbard]

Oh jeez. We've reached the "oh god my portfolio is due in six weeks and I am way behind where I should be" part of my comps semester, and I'm going through 3-4 books a day AND ANNOTATING THEM, and I feel like my brain is about to leak out of my ears and not only can I not sustain this pace for six weeks, I'm not getting enough done given that I should have spent THE SUMMER doing this, but did not, owing to reasons like (1) took two classes (2) taught a class and (3) everything that happened with the house.

My program is switching from comprehensive exams to a comprehensive portfolio, with my cohort as the transition, and I was told firmly to do the portfolio instead of the exams because "it seems less stressful, and we need you to not be stressed," except at this point I genuinely think exams would be significantly less stressful because at least I wouldn't have to write up 150 books worth of annotated bibliographies, just read the books. Not helping is the fact that because no one is one hundred percent sure what's required or expected the expectations keep CHANGING on me. (Like, we were told do the annotated bibliographies -- taking the place of reading lists -- in the Oxford Bibliographies Online style, and the Oxford Bibliographies Online are really short! So I showed my annotations to my advisor and she immediately went, "These are way too short." So now I have to rewrite all the ones I'd done already and the new ones have to be longer, and because they're longer that means I have to actually read the books more thoroughly, which means more time and more brainspace for it.) And I have to find the time and brainspace to do the revisions for the other parts of my portfolio, and write the one part of it from scratch that I haven't done before. (It's two article length papers and a "plan for publishing them," whatever that means, no one actually knows; a historiography essay; a grant application (this is the part I haven't done yet because I haven't had a reason to ask the university or anyone else for money); two annotated syllabi (both written, except one I have to rewrite since it's the one I used for my online summer class and apparently they would actually like it for a normal-length semester class taught traditionally); plus teaching evals from my TA stint last year. And the three annotated bibliographies for our fields, which in my case are Roman history, Greek history, and Roman frontier studies. And the oral defense, which I'm trying to schedule but getting professors to agree on anything is like herding cats. And one of my cats is on another continent, and one is in the Art History department, and one is in the Classics department, and the other one I see on a weekly basis so she's fine.

I'm...really tempted to ask to just submit in January instead of November, but if I do that (a) I can't teach in spring (b) scheduling the oral defense will be even more of a nightmare because my Greek history advisor, who is in Greece all academic year but will be back in December and (c) I don't like admitting defeat.

I'm just so overstimulated. Gods. I feel like my brain is going to leak out my ears and I have another six weeks of this. (Portfolio is due November 15.) And I'm feeling like such a failure already because I didn't do more work over the summer, which was so, so horribly stressful for me because I was so busy and so burnt out and as you know I was in Handyman Hell the whole time (I didn't get a vacation until I went home at the beginning of August, at which point I immediately got sick), and then I came back and the house was still a disaster and then Dragon Con and then school started and then the air con and the internet both died at the same time, and then I was trying to play catch-up, and then I went to Disney World last week, and then I came back and promptly started to have daily panic attacks about my comps. And I'm also auditing a class (my advisor's class) so I also have to do the reading for that AND write responses for it, and it's a three hour seminar which means that no reading gets done on Thursdays and the days before it I can't do as much reading because I have to do the readings for the class. And my advisor just looks so disappointed in me when I try to explain this to her while also leaving out Dragon Con and Disney. (Disney was lovely. I desperately needed that vacation.)

oh jeez. I'm trying to work out if I can afford to take one day a week to not do any work, because I know I need the decompression time, but I'm just not sure that I can. Maybe if I just read fewer books tomorrow. Today was a lot. I still haven't done any of the rest of my portfolio work because the bibliographies have to get done. oh gods. well, this is today's scheduled panic attack, I guess. (also if people would stop telling me to get on meds or go to therapy that would be great, this is my comps semester and I am supposed to be going out of my mind, save it for another semester with a normal workload when the anxiety is actually irrational.)

Comments

[harmony_lover]

I don't know if it helps for you to hear this right now, but it actually will be fine. I also lost my mind during my comps, had a department where the expectations were very unclear, and thought that my brain was going to fall out before I got through them, but you will make it. <3

As far as a plan for publishing your two article-length papers, I would write up a thing that talks about which journal you want to submit each one to and why, what journals you want to use for a second submission, in case they don't get taken the first time, and what the timeline would look like (taking into account that peer review from a journal routinely takes six months, and if it's shorter you are lucky, and that you almost always have to do revisions afterward). I can't imagine they would be unhappy with that, unless someone is truly just making up these requirements as they go!

Feel free to vent at me if you like! I've been through this process, and I know how insane it makes you feel. Lots of hugs!!

[bedlamsbard]

Thank you, that actually does help. <3 I'm now freaking out about the grant proposal because I don't actually have a project I need grant money for, which means I need to make one up out of thin air and then write a proposal for it, without actually having a specific grant in mind.

The plan for publication thing is also worrying me -- "this is the journal I would like to submit it to for these reasons" was what I was planning on doing, but now I'm worried that that's not elaborate enough. And it seems to be kind of unclear if we need to do those for both papers or just for one? There's also a whole thing about how the plan for publication could also be a plan to submit it to a conference for workshopping, then to a journal, or just to a journal, or just for a conference, and the whole thing is just. This is unnecessarily stressful.

also I read fifty books in two weeks which I didn't think was actually humanly possible but here we are. And I need to do about another...eh, eighty? eighty-five? in the next month. I did not think this through.

[harmony_lover]

I am SO sorry that I haven't replied to this before now. I saw it, at some point, and had intended to reply, and then apparently got swamped by the semester. I am glad that what I said initially helped! I hope the grant proposal went well, and the plan for publication. Hopefully someone clarified some of the requirements for you.

50 books in two weeks shouldn't be humanly possible, oi. And how did the next 80 go?

More hugs from my corner of the woods!

[bedlamsbard]

lol, there was never any actual clarification, sob. but if I don't know then I can only assume my committee doesn't either?

I am actually working on it right now, as it is due tomorrow! eek. The books...went. Fifty books in two weeks is only doable for the first two weeks, but I did get them all done eventually.

it is almost done! thank you!

[harmony_lover]

It is a pretty safe bet that if you don't know and never got any clarification, your committee members probably don't know either. That means, generally, that you can worry less, and that they will be more flexible. :)

You can do it! You are going to finish this thing, and turn it in, and it will all be fine. <3 <3

[bedlamsbard]

I've got the intro paragraphs for each section of my Roman history annotated bibliography and the general portfolio introduction left to write tomorrow, then trying to cram all of this into a single PDF somehow, and then it will be done. The intro paragraphs/essay for the annotated bibliographies are the part I'm worried about now, because the instructions are really vague and the one sample we have (from a student who submitted hers in spring) is...really not something I'm going to do, since she just straight up wrote mini historiographical essays and, having a much broader range of material on my bibliographies, it's not super possible for me to do that. (also, there is already a historiography essay in this portfolio, coincidentally on the same topic as my thematic bibliography. I can only say the exact same thing in so many different ways.) urgh.

*weak cheer* soon, though! soon it will be over! and then I don't have to think about Rome for -- uh -- two days.

[harmony_lover]

It sounds like you have most of the pieces under control! For the intros, maybe part of what you can do is talk about why you have this broad range of materials, and why that is important to your project. Just a thought. :)

[unheard_secret]

Hey - I'm not sure I've ever responded to a post of yours before, but I wanted to wish you the very best of luck. I hope it is possible for you to schedule some free time... Even if it's as little as half a day.

[bedlamsbard]

<3 Thank you. I took all of yesterday off, which was a relief even if I'm still not sure I could have, and I do generally try to have a hard stop time in the evenings so I'm not doing schoolwork after ten pm (sometimes eleven, but not midnight anymore). Sometimes I'm doing other stuff at 3 am, but never schoolwork.