Time

The process of "growing up" seems to be this: a relinquishing of the concept of free time. When I was younger my grandmother used to explain her ability to spend so much time with me as that "You either have time or money, but you don't have both." Her axiom made a lot of sense to me, but now it makes none. I see a lot of people with both money and time, and I see a lot of people with neither. I guess I fall somewhere in the middle, but probably closer to the having no money end than the having no time.

I'm lucky because I don't have to work 80 hours a week; yet it's not like I really have the option to work that and get paid more. And as many other academics know, much of the work you do is unpaid but still "part of the job" - research, coaching students, serving on committees. It's not like I get paid for the 3 hours a day I'm (supposed to be) spending on my dissertation. In theory, it will kick in down the line, but I'm growing more cynical about the whole "hard work pays off" business.

I'd like to talk to my grandma about this again - of course she's not around - but I guess at the end of the day, it depends on perspective. Whenever I feel frustrated, I try to take the bird's eye view and realize that on the continuum I'm doing pretty good. My frustration seems to stem from the fact that this year's "back to school" re-adjustment period has seemed incredibly challenging, perhaps complicated by the craziness of things at home (washing machine broken, no oven, no place to store my dishes, etc) while trying to maintain a positive attitude and get a significant portion of work done on my dissertation.

I think I told my grandma before she died that her axion wasn't true, and if I remember correctly she sighed and said, well, yeah, but you don't want to tell a kid that.

But hard work paying off, that's still true, right?

Right?