So, gosh I'm really bad at introductions...
Hello, my name is Tom. I'm a humanities PhD student at a major research institution.
[this is the part where you tell me your name]
Oh, pleased to meet you!
...
I suppose you'd like to know why I've started a blog. Well, I have my reasons, some of which I'm not going to say here, but suffice it to say there are a few key things you should know:
1) I'm pretty out of shape. I'm 27, I weigh 230 lbs. I'm about 6'1". This may not seem like all that bad of a BMI, but I've got a pretty sizable gut, and could stand to loose about 30-40lbs. I'm not necessarily going to hold myself to numerical weight goals, but this tangent is for another post. Now, you might be wondering why being overweight necessitates a blog. After all, I could just as easily go on a diet or work out without writing about it. This question, of course, leads me to...
2) My puppy! Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, meet Holly!
But wait! Doesn't this raise the question as to why you got a dog in the first place? Perhaps it does, but I'd like to think that puppies are enough justification for themselves. If, however, you must pry....
3) For the past year I've been dealing with some really challenging depression and anxiety. Ok, for some background to this: Graduate school may be one of the worst things for one's sanity.
I'm somewhere in my third year now, and I've been working on my orals and prospectus. Now, for those who don't know what these mean, let me give you the basic structure of my PhD program, which I think is pretty representative. Generally, a PhD in my field takes somewhere between six and seven years. The first two are spent taking coursework - in my case, various reading and research seminars devoted to special topics and themes. In the third year, students prepare for their comprehensive oral exams (orals). In some programs, these exams are written (and then referred to as "comps"). In my department, "orals" consists of four thematic fields, each comprised by 50 books. Each field has a professor who serves to advise the field. Over a roughly eight-month period, students read these books, synthesize their content, and prepare for a two-hour long exam on all the books. This equates to roughly a book a day, and at least a month of review before the exam itself.
Shortly thereafter, students prepare a dissertation prospectus. In the case of my department, that is a 40-50 page document that details the scope, content, structure, and evidence of the dissertation, which is itself monograph length, or usually 200-300 pages.
Both of these projects have been extremely challenging for me. I suffer from depression and anxiety, and have had struggles with childhood ADD/ADHD, which may have reared its ugly head again. Orals and the prospectus require daily commitment and extreme self-discipline, something I lack. Working on the orals proved extremely difficult. Books were left undone, or remained untouched until the last minute. That which I did read either progressed at a ponderously slow pace, or was skimmed very lightly. Deadlines were postponed. Stress and anxiety mounted, and by june I had reached a breaking point, with only a third of the list read, barely at that, and a three month period to read nearly 160 books.
I'd say that I broke down then, that something snapped and I couldn't work anymore, but that would be a lie. The truth is that had I spent hours, if not days in bed wrapped in a blanket, unable to start working, for months prior. What happened was that I became honest with myself about my issues. I started seeking therapy, went on anti-depressants, and took a medical leave from the Graduate School.
...
I'd like to say that this is the first time I've tried running, or that I've tried so many other programs, regimens, routines, or even gimmicks to get better. I often equate my mental health issues with my physique.
This is not an unfounded conclusion, as there's an abundance of evidence that shows the antidepressive powers of exercise. I am, however, wary of making too many connections between my weight and my emotional well being. When I'm in bed, wrapped in a blanket, on the internet, I'm usually avoiding the things that give me anxiety, or terrify me, or make me feel ashamed, or seem insurmountable. These are often work related, but run the gamut from dishes to returning library books. I tend to amalgamate my issues into one big bolus of inadequacy, lumping together disparate challenges into a mountain of failure to be a functional adult. And so it's hard not to think of the prospect of going to the gym as connected with my inability to read books for my PhD. And so I come up with regimens, quick fixes to try to get better. And I fail at them, for the same reasons that I've been unable to complete my orals reading, because this isn't about a quick fix. This is about doing things differently.
...
I can't say whether or not things will get better. I'm worried that they won't, or that I'm unable to deal with them. But I do think that the medication is helping, and I do think that getting a dog will help me. Holly's already got me on a morning schedule, and if I don't want her to eat a bunch of detritus, I need to clean my place pretty regularly. And if I don't want her tearing apart the place, I need to get her outside. I know that I can't fix everything with a puppy and a blog, ostensibly about running with Holly, but I'd like to think that this is a step in the right direction.
