a work log, or something

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. 

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... 

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 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.

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... 

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.

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. 

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.