distress and eustress

I promised my former advisor that I'd have an article for him by the end of the year for inclusion in a themed issue of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly on Bonaventure. Meanwhile, I haven't finished the dissertation chapter I insisted I'd have finished by the beginning of November. It is not only not finished; it is, in fact, nowhere near finished, as it keeps growing and growing and growing. I will lose my mind and will not finish my dissertation in time (how Hermionesque is that, to consider the second of those as worse than the first) if I do not cut something from this increasingly mammoth work. I realize the topic is too large, but I also feel constrained by the need to keep the project within the official constraints of the grant, while still keeping it a) philosophically interesting, b) interesting to me (otherwise, I just won't have the stamina to complete it), and c) workable within the timeframe. At the moment, it is b), maybe a), but definitely not c), and I am so stressed that I feel paralyzed when I sit down to work, which, needless to say, does not help.

Meanwhile, Jake arrives three weeks from tomorrow, and after the whirlwind tour of Christmas celebrations and meeting members of my extended family (poor Jake) we head off to NYC for APA (that's the American Philosophical Association annual Eastern division conference, for those of you who are not up on that acronym). On the day he arrives, my dad and I will go to meet him at airport, we will go out to breakfast with my dad (who Jake has not yet met), and then my dad will drive us to the jeweler's, where we will look at rings. My mom will pick us up from there, and we will go to Longwood Gardens to look at poinsettas and Christmas lights and sing Christmas songs.

In February I go back to Belgium for ten days; there's a small conference in Leuven associated with the project I am working under for my dissertation, and I have to give a paper, as well as be available to help with the conference. Jake and I have talked about my moving to Portland in March, but that could be complicated by the fact that as of right now Jake doesn't have a job after December. The place where he's currently adjuncting can't give him any classes next term. Then too, we don't yet know where (and if) Jake will get a permanent teaching job and/or post-doc for next year.

Anya (whose name I can now say, since she now knows about me) graduates from high school and turns 18 at the end of June. We plan to bring her to the states for a visit, and then she will stay with us, and we will sponsor her for school beginning in the fall, first to study English and then to attend a regular university or art school. In order for her to get a student visa, we will have to have all of her tuition for the year upfront and be able to prove that we have adequate means to support her housing, food and related costs.

My dissertation must be submitted no later than the first half of October 2010, to be defended by the end of the calendar year.

So basically, my stress level is high, though not for any particularly unpleasant reasons, and this appears to be my year for radical change.

to recap: between September 2009 and December 2010 I have done, am doing or tentatively will do the following:

1) move to the states from Belgium
2) attend two academic conferences
3) write one journal article and one paper to give at a conference
4) finish my dissertation
5) defend my dissertation, thus completing my 27 years (if I counted right) of formal schooling
6) ride on a total of at least eighteen planes, probably more
7) get engaged
8) get married
9) live with my father for the first time since I was five
10) move from my father's to an undisclosed location (probably Portland) and then possibly to another undisclosed location after that.
11) sponsor a Ukrainian teenager to come to the states and study
12) live with a Ukrainian teenager (basically as part of my immediate family, even though it's not an official adoption and any family link, or lack of it, is her choice, not mine)
13) maybe once things have calmed down a bit, Jake and I can get a second cat -- he always says he wants two.

It's not that I don't want any of these things to happen (except for the part about being behind and overwhelmed in my work); it's just that I don't enjoy the fact that they are all happening at the same time. I would have preferred the opportunity to experience them one at a time. The stress from each one compounds the stress of the others, making it a good deal more difficult to concentrate on work, which is by far my greatest stress. It's not that I'm not thankful, or that I'm at all unhappy; I'm just incredibly overwhelmed.

So, that's what's up with me and why you haven't heard from me in awhile.

love,
yhn