restart

if you know anything about me, you now that one of my favorite TV shows is "house" with hugh laurie.  though, if you talk to my friends, you will discover that i have yet to finish watching season 6.  this has nothing to do with the show, or the fact that [spoiler alert] cameron has left chase and princeton-plainsboro (that was the last episode that i saw).  it's more a matter of time and priorities as well as my own self-awareness when it comes to my TV watching habits.  if i start, i won't be able to just stop at one episode.  i can't play the carrot-and-stick reward game with my favorite television shows.  when i start, i want to watch three or four episodes at a time, and right now, i just don't have that kind of time.  well, let me make an amendment to that--i shouldn't spend that much time to watching television.

so while i have yet to finish season 6, "house" is still the one television show that i think about when progress on the dissertation comes to a standstill and when the will to work on my dissertation is low.  in fact, it's the one show that inspires me the most when it comes to actually working on my dissertation, setting high goals and expectations for myself, and encourages me to get myself into my writing space (which is my office on campus) each day.  believe me, i understand just how odd that statement is.  how can a fictional television show inspire anyone to want to write their dissertation?  it's house himself--the character, not the actor who portrays him.

in a blog post far far away and in a time long long ago, i wrote about my impressions of house.  ever since i started writing my dissertation, but particularly in the last couple of months, i find myself going back to that blog post.  in short--house may be socially appalling and ethically reprehensible, but he's damn good at what he does, he has an amazing ability to concentrate and focus on a problem and look at it from all angles, and he devotes an incredible amount of time and energy, heart and soul into the one thing that he values most--medicine, or maybe it's solving a medical mystery (it could be argued that he really does care about saving lives, but nah, i'm not going for it.  it's the puzzle that he loves, the thrill of victory and being the one to figure out a puzzle that others couldn't decipher.  in another life he probably would have been a codebreaker.  but i digress...).  it's these qualities that i admire most in gregory house, md, and they are the qualities that i try to emulate when it comes to working on my dissertation.

if house's one thing is medicine and an unmatched ability to solve whatever medical puzzle you throw at him, my one thing is finishing this dissertation.  it is the one thing around which everything in my life revolves.  i made some major life changes to get here, to this point where i'm a ph.d. candidate and ABD, and finishing the dissertation is going to be the pinnacle of so many of the dreams i've always dreamt but wasn't ever sure i would reach.  it's also the one thing on which i am building so many of my hopes for the future.  so if the dissertation is my one thing, then i tell myself i should be a lot more focused on it and devoting much more time and energy, heart and soul into it.  if i want to have house-like success i have to work like house.

and so oddly here i am on a friday re-committing (for what, the tenth time now?) to working harder and more consistently on the dissertation.  i'm going to work even when i don't want to work and i'm going to have to get a lot more serious about setting daily goals and holding my own feet to the fire in terms of meeting those goals before going home and making a fantastic dinner, or sleeping, or playing fallen london... everyone knows that writing a dissertation is hard, that's why not everyone does it.  but what only dissertation writers know is that the hardest part about writing the dissertation is motivating yourself to work on a consistent basis.  i imagine that i will continue to struggle with this for the next nine months, but when i seem to be going nowhere fast on my project, i'll just ask myself "what would house do?" and i'll have the answer i need.