Siliceous and Delicious

I have been working at my PhD for over three years. I came to this shocking realization at about four in the morning one day last week, as I tossed and turned in a restless panic about the familiar lack of progress and the emasculating effects of not doing anything about it. The corollary of this realization that inspired terror somewhere deep within is that I am now not only well past the half-way mark of the standard five-year PhD, but also more than half way through the six years accepted in my lab group. Time is running, like water into the Titanic, and it’s time to do something about it. It may seem completely counter-intuitive to invest time at this stage into something that looks as very unlike scientific research as a web page. But my experience is that writing things out is the best way for me to focus and develop thoughts, and that I have an easier time doing that by keyboard than by pencil. I am hopeful that by keeping notes here, the thoughts will keep flowing and I will break through the comfortable crust of not wanting to think deeply and logically about my work that develops all too quickly on the cooling bowl of research gruel. Plus, this way I can provide an efficient mechanism for distracting my fellow DSA fighter from his own work with far more detail about mine than anybody could possibly desire. In any case, the not thinking, not engaging, feeling ambivalent and detached from my PhD has gone on for long enough, and it’s time to really close the fist upon this endeavor. It’s time to start moving towards the end, or as a wise tribe of North America puts it: GRD.