I did see my shrink yesterday. He is a really smart man, about 60 years old. He has seen almost everything you can think of as far as trauma, drama and emotional problems are concerned. If I had to tell you one person on this planet who is not judgmental at all, I would say it is him.
And, as it is his job, he really made me thinking. We were discussing the neverending drama of "Tina -not- finishing her legal thesis". He is telling me constantely, as careful as possible and for months, that I should finish the thesis somehow. And I do agree with him. The sad thing with my thesis is, that I did actually work hard on it. I did put in a lot of effort, time, dedication and not to forget money. I have been working on it for 3 years.I wrote fucking 200 pages on a tricky legal subject, just to have my law professor tell me in the end, that one chapter, about 50 pages, are really not good enough and that they needed to be fully redone.
This has happened in March/April and since then I have been trying to force myself to get over the harsh critique and start rewriting that damn crazy chapter. But did I do it? NOPE! Since then, I opened an internet blog on domestic discipline, I had the chance of talking with men from all over the world about really private things, not to forget: I did find a really fantastic man in the United States...but did I find the courage to finish the damn thesis? NOPE again!
I have been trying many different approaches in finishing the paper. But I just can not make myself working on it again. The feeling of "you are not good enough" still freezes me as far as the thesis is concerned. And now, to make things worse, it seems to be a matter of me not having the "enormous" amount of 5oo € to pay for my semester fee at the university, to keep my student status. But I am reluctant to throw good money after bad. Sigh, anyway...
During our talk, the shrink said to me: "you should bring your thesis to an end somehow. Can`t you use your female power in "influencing" the prof?" He seems to think that there are many unused resources...
And my answer was: NOOOOOOOOOO, I HAVE NO CLUE HOW TO DO THAT. (And imagine me saying that very emotionally and with a cracking voice , lol.)
I know, there are women out there who do just that. Women who just know how to manipulate men into doing things for them. My stepdad for instance does have a male friend, who wrote a whole damn thesis for his girlfriend. I do have female friends myself who can "play" men as good as Lang Lang can play piano.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh3NsZVOjq4&feature=related Women who turn mens head easily, who just know how to wrap men around their fingers.
Heck, aren´t I supposed to be able to do just that too?
My point is, I just do not know how to play the "female" card. It is just not my modus operandi. For instance: The last time I did see my prof I have been wearing a marines corps pullover http://marinepride.com/products/marine_corps_apparel/USMC-Hoodie/10264 and jeans. At the university I usually do not want to draw attention to the fact that I am a woman. I think it should not matter. In a way, I do not WANT to resort to female weapons. And since I did not want to use these means, I never really learned how to use them if need be...
Only VERY,very seldom do I take advantage out of the fact that my opponent is male and I am female. I did that in a conversation in the States, a few weeks ago, but the situation had been extraordinary. Due to "my man" and due to the good time I had been having with him, I had been aware of my feminine side much more than ever before in my life. So I was not really "playing" anything, and I was not manipulating at all. I had just felt so feminine and invincible like never before.
On the other hand, if I really want to, I can "read" men and understand men like not many woman can. According to my shrink, I do have a very fine grasp of men and how they tick. He is convinced that I do have a knack for "opening" people, especially men, emotionally. He thinks that I am extraordinary perceptive.
I think: I just do have a very good intuition and a real interest in human beings. It is something that comes very natural to me.
Thinking about these things, I realised that I can only use these special abilities in order to help people/men.
But as soon as I want to use it in order to get help, it does not work at all. It is very strange. And I do not know why it is like that.
Don`t get me wrong. I am not trying to paint a colorful picture of the "holy Tina" who is always there for others. It´s actually just the opposite. If I could, I would probably capitalize my abilities as much as possible for my own advantage. However, I just realised that I am not doing that precisely because - for some unknown reasons- I can not do that.
Tina:
ReplyDeleteI feel for you as I have been there before. I wrote a thesis and one of the five professors on my committee torpedoed a couple of the chapters. My advisor didn't have the balls to fight it out with her since she was in charge of the program he worked in and she was very influential. I had to start over. It was very daunting and I had already accepted a job as a professor. The university that hired me lowered my salary until the thesis was revised. I did it but it took a lot of hard work because I was starting a new job as a professor and dealing with all of that. In the end what matters is how badly you want something. I worked my way out of my situation the old fashioned way - rolled up my sleeves and dug back into it. I didn't seek my advisor's hep all that much - I just forged ahead with the advice already given by the professor who opposed my diploma and crafted everything to satisfy her. She loved the revision and before the defense of my dissertation she even ordered champagne and chocolate with strawberries because she knew the revision would pass the exam. To this day I consider it the greatest accomplishment of my life (even though the title "professor" doesn't mean anything to me and I insist that my students call me by my name. So I emerged from it a stronger and better person. I encourage you to follow your therapist's advice and finish it. The personal reward of proving that you can meet a challenge someone lays down for you are worth their weight in gold.
Good luck!
@Serving B: Please don`t tell me you are a professor. I actually did like you, lol.
ReplyDeleteI really had to laugh the other day when I read an entry in your blog and you mentioned, as an obiter dictum, that you had written many chapters of your bookS(!!!) at the place you have been with B.
Anyway,I know you are right. I need to finish the thesis. It`s just that I can`t (pounting...lol).
I really need to get my act together...
Hello Tina. No, I have grown up immensely. I am a teacher not a professor. I work with younger students and enjoy it very much. :)
ReplyDeleteYou go girl. You can do it!
I agree with your shrink and with "Serving B": Get it done!
ReplyDeleteAnd my very subjective and personal advice:
Don't try to write a brilliant paper. Don't write with "Herzblut". The goal is to get it accepted. Write it in a way so that it satisfies your professor. It's not necessary that he will be impressed or enormously proud of you.
A "Yes - ok - that'll do - best of luck for the future - and now get out of here" is sufficient.
The goal is not to make yourself proud of the paper, or your professor or anyone else. The goal is to get it passed.
That might sound really depressing but frankly - who cares in five years from now?
The human mental set-up is amazing. We all have some sort of an energy source which does many things. For example, it heals our skin and bones when they are broken. We may put plasters on, etc, but our living body is a source that heals itself.
ReplyDeleteIn the same way, our living body uses this energy to create thoughts. Some of those thoughts our brains decide are true, and turn into beliefs, and the others we don't think are true, and discard (our Nature and Nurturing will help decide which). Then we live our lives 'through the experience' of the thoughts and beliefs we have created and, based on whatever they are, have a good or bad experience.
In other words, we create, in our head, what everything in our life 'means' to us. And at the end of the day that is the important thing to remember - that we created them. Whatever we come up with, with our own brain, will be 'our' truth, not 'the' truth. Our brains simply created ideas and opinions, in the same way body creates new skin.
You seem to be like me: someone who feels a need to be fully honest and true. But I found that I only had in my head the thoughts and beliefs my own brain created (for even agreeing with others’ beliefs is an act of re-creating them in my own head).
I think we all need to learn to say: ‘Maybe, just maybe, I know who I am today, but tomorrow I know I might be someone different – someone more.’ Then the truths we created in the past, that now hold us back, will have less power and the next set of thoughts and beliefs our body energy creates, will be more free. Then when you hear yourself say in your head: ‘I know such and such is true’ there will be a new, little, liberating voice that goes, ‘Hmm, for now maybe, but... .’
Maybe it's not You - it's Him.
ReplyDeleteAs a speechwriter, I've written "brilliant" speeches (in the estimation of others) ...
... that were rejected by a "Toxic Boss".
I have a sign next to my desk, beautifully calligraphed, that says, "Hate it. Got to do it." In my case the slogan applies not to writing (which I actually do quite easily) but in the compiling of indexes for the back of other people's books, one of the ways I make my living and have done for better than half my life. (I am now in my early 60s.) The process is painfully slow at times and brings to the surface all sorts of inner conflicts; in recognition of this I employ a range of tactics including going over my wife's lap for a good sound smacking as punishment for procrastination because it is better to acknowledge that part of me is a naughty child deliberately "playing hooky from school" and another part of that same child well aware that he isn't supposed to get away with it and OUGHT to be spanked for it. And one way or another I eventually get to that place where the compilation is done and all that is wanted is the editing, and it's a fast ski-ride down to the bottom of the slope from there, with suitable rewards built in at the end (last night, when I had finished the index to one of the hardest books I've ever had to work on, I took both of us out for pizza so neither of us would have to cook.)
ReplyDeleteGetting the thesis done is going to require collaboration among all parts of you: the adult who needs it for your advancement, the inner parent who is telling you to keep your nose to the grindstone but also looking out for the child whose emotional needs are not to be trampled on in the process. To the extent that you get them all pulling in the same direction, you will have an easier time of it. As for the preofessor who wants a rewrite on a perfectly good chapter, this is par for the course, as they say in bocce: It's part of teh hazing process, the graduate-school equivalent of one of those big wooden paddles with the three Greek letters on them you see in shots of fraternity SM rituals. Pay it no mind and don't take it seriously, but just jump through the required hoop and get on to the next thing.
I should add that I have actually been a professor -- by courtesy, for I was merely adjunct faculty at a state university here in the USA for a little over six years, somewhat as a lark -- and they hired me with just a bachelor's degree, but that was because I had, in fact, published a lot of stuff in my field (classical etymology). There are niches for any talent if one pokes around for them. Still, it seems to me that the benefits of completing your dissertation far outweigh the inconveniences. Just build in enough rewards and stopping places for recreation along the way; it's all in the pacing, or most of it anyway. That you will prevail in the end I have no doubt. You are obviously a smart lady and you will get what you want in good time.