Revisions

October 16th, 11:20 am

• Status: 5 of 15 revisions complete.
• One of the changes in progress is that I'm making sure all the citations I used in-text are in my reference section. That is pretty mindless.
• I'm going to buy fast food (the healthier variety) lunch and dinner.
• I plan to be done with 10 of the 15 changes by 2:00.

October 16th, 4:00 pm

• Status: 8 of 15 revisions complete, 2 more revisions are half complete.
• Had some sushi and a spinach salad for lunch, and some more coffee and green tea.
• I'm going to try to make progress on a couple more of the items as I watch some TV and eat dinner, but then I'm going to bed. It should take me about 8 more hours to finish the changes. I could probably finish them all today if I stay up until midnight, but I don't work well in the last half of the day. I wasn't very effective today, but I did get a chunk of the revisions done, so I should feel good about that. 
• I think I was right in that my revisions have taken up about 3 full 8-hour work days to complete. At this point I have spent about 2 full 8-hour days working on the changes, so I still have 1 more 8-hour day to go before finishing. It's amazing how long everything takes...even things you think are minor. Once you start making changes, you notice other changes to be made and then you start fixing nearby paragraphs...pretty soon a 5-minute change turns into 30 minutes. I need to be careful about that. I keep catching myself slipping off task and researching other related things to change, but I keep reminding myself that I only need to change what they required me to change. Just do the required changes first and only come back to additional things I find if I have time.
• I plan to sleep for a while and get up to finish the rest of the changes, sending him the draft by 5 AM PST so that he has it in his inbox at 8 AM EST. The time difference is kind of a killer because I feel like I have to work on east coast time, which means the start of the work day is 5 AM for me. It doesn't work out well when you need to get something to your advisor by 8 AM his time EST -- you pretty much have to get up at 2 in the morning to work on anything. Well, I only have to do that one more day, so I think I can deal with it once more.

I'm struggling to focus. I had another episode of that "falling down" sensation, even though I know I was perfectly balanced. It might be vertigo. All I can think of when I think of vertigo is Lucille 2 from Arrested Development. It's nothing that intense, but it's this falling sensation when your body thinks it's falling when it's not. It's horrible. The only other thing I have experienced that is similar is when I have been really intoxicated (not in a long time, but I still remember the sensation). I mean, really intoxicated, so much that your head is spinning and you can't focus your eyes on anything because the room is spinning. It's kind of like that, but you're perfectly sober and sitting upright in a chair, and it hits you all of a sudden and you start falling out of your chair. It's kind of like the sensation when you're jumping down a flight of stairs in a dream, anticipating hitting the bottom. It's this uncontrollable sensation that gives you the tingles and makes you dizzy. I've only had it happen once today, but in the last week or so it has happened about 5 times.

I'm tired of being fatigued and unable to sleep. Today I have dark circles under my eyes and am extremely pale (I kind of look like a vampire) and I look really sick, I'm having vertigo and sensations of feeling like I'm falling off my chair all of a sudden, eye strain, night terrors, panic attacks, and constant anxiety. That is what the last couple months have done to me! The panic attacks, night terrors, and constant debilitating anxiety subsided once my meeting was over, but the other stuff is still present due to the stress that I'm under. The anxiety isn't overwhelming anymore but I still feel a little anxiety because I still have to finish my revisions before this is all over. I want to be done done, not in limbo like I am. Tomorrow, I should be one step closer to being finished, after I send my final revised draft to my advisor. I'm aiming to send it by 8 AM EST so that he can read it tomorrow and get back to me on it tomorrow. That should allow me to finish my PhD by the end of the work week. Hopefully, all these symptoms I'm having will vanish after this weekend.