June

I somehow managed to waste the entire month of May. . .okay, that’s not entirely fair. I finished the semester on May 9, which was followed by two weeks of mayhem at my parents’ house: Millie, the Newfoundland my Mom rescued from a puppy mill, had to be euthanized after suddenly becoming paralyzed. Mom took the entire experience so hard: Millie was in a vet hospital for a week, and the vets could not figure out the problem. Exactly one week after we took her to the  clinic, they called to say Millie could no longer swallow on her own, and that the best thing to do would be to put her to sleep. Millie was only 2 1/2 years old. . .

Mom went to the vet hospital everyday, and I babysat my niece and tended to household chores so she could spend more time with Millie.

Needless to say, I didn’t get any work done, and now I am officially a month behind on my dissertation. Ack. I feel so hopeless right now; I wish I could have done more to help Millie, but I also resent my passivity in not taking time out of each day to do my own work. I chalk it up to helping the family, but that’s a kind of cop-out, I think. What if I can’t keep myself on track with the dissertation? What if I continually come up with new excuses to avoid the work I need to do (side note: I had no idea there were so many interesting blogs out there. Right. You see the problem.).

I need to stay on track: maybe blogging about my (lack of) progress each day will help. Then again, maybe it will lead to more avoidance on my part. Blogging=more writing=more stuff I want to avoid=me watching another “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” marathon.

Why did  I think this whole PhD thing was a good idea?