avatarLucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她)

Summary

The author reflects on the challenges of a busy graduate student schedule and the desire to write creatively amidst the chaos, emphasizing the importance of listening to one's body and making time for personal expression.

Abstract

The author, Lucy Dan 蛋小姐, shares a personal account of the struggle to balance a hectic graduate student lifestyle with the innate need to write and express thoughts freely. Despite the transition from a relaxed summer schedule to a more rigid academic routine, she finds solace in writing, whether it be through journaling, freewriting, or crafting newsletters. The article underscores the importance of taking breaks, the joy of unstructured writing, and the necessity of tuning into one's body to balance work and personal well-being. The author advocates for succinct meetings and flexible scheduling to allow for rest and creativity, and she encourages readers to listen to their own bodies and prioritize self-care.

Opinions

  • The author values the importance of writing as a form of personal expression and mental decompression, even amidst a busy schedule.
  • There is a critique of the academic culture that often leads to long work hours without adequate breaks, which the author finds counterproductive.
  • The author appreciates the moments of creativity, such as writing a short newsletter piece, which provides a sense of fulfillment and connection with others.
  • She emphasizes the need for more efficient and concise meetings to allow for rest and preparation time between commitments.
  • The author believes in the significance of listening to one's body and adjusting one's evening routine to cater to personal needs and whims after a structured workday.
  • She promotes the idea of making time for what one's body and mind are yearning for, whether it's rest, creativity, or other

☕ Let’s sit down and talk, shall we?

a chat, please grab a hot beverage per your preference

Photo by Diego Rosa on Unsplash

As I wind down from a busy day, something pulled me towards writing, yet I didn’t want to tackle any of my existing drafts (shocker) or anything official.

I know a lot of my articles have a more casual tone but even then, it’s usually arisen out of a journal / morning pages outline that I’ve somehow jotted some thoughts down.

Here, I’m literally freewriting again.

Oh yeah, remember that period of my life where I thought I would do a daily freewrite? I sincerely cannot remember the feeling of the summer already, having been back at school for only two weeks. It’s been that busy.

The hectic schedule hits me like this, every year

So, the weird thing about being a graduate student is that we actually work year-round and have a 2-week holiday. Some don’t even take that 2-week holiday as some macho demonstration of how truly dedicated they are to the degree, but that’s a different topic for a different day.

So technically, especially since I don’t have any formal classes because I’d completed all the required courses, August should feel exactly like September. I haven’t even really moved from my spot at my chair in front of the screen.

Yet, my days went from a soft start at 9am to a hard start 9am, and maybe trying to do some pre-9am pre-meeting preparation because my schedule is filling up to a point where there aren’t any in-between moments to debrief and offload to-do lists and prep for the next meeting.

Sure, I advocate for 50-minute hour meetings and 25 minute half-hour meetings, but I also fully recognize that not everyone has the flexibility. When I have the power to, I try to give myself and anyone I’m working with to have that break. But I’m not always setting the agenda, and when I’m just an attendee to another meeting, it becomes someone else’s duty to run the meeting and damn, some people really like to talk. I love them, but please be more succinct so I can both rest my eyes, my facial expressions and my existence from needing to be communicating and absorbing every wink of my work day.

Yet it’s specifically in these busy moments that I yearn to write

Sure, I already journal for at least 24 minutes in the morning via my morning pages routine. Sometimes, I include an additional 24 minutes in the morning as a shift towards any existing Medium drafts that I’m working on. (And boy, do I have so many of those half-finished ones!)

Yet, I yearn for more.

In between two projects, I sent this out via my newsletter:

It was short, took all of 3-minutes to craft, yet really embodied a snippet of what I wanted to share with the world today. And it felt good.

And sometimes, I chase that feeling

Sometimes I chase that feeling and want to write more. I’m writing even though my eyes are so tired they literally are glazing over. I’m writing even though every skin cell in my body is itching for a nice shower. I’m writing because my fingers have a life of their own and they needed to dance across a keyboard to tell a story, even a disorganized story about the day.

And I’m making the time to do that, without direction.

Just an unstructured prance across the keyboard today.

My fingers getting their cardio on.

And that felt good.

I hope, wherever you are, whenever you are (time travellers??????????????!) you are able to make some time for what your body is calling out for

My fingers have danced enough at this point, and my body is calling out for a shower. From one call to another, I like that my evening routine isn’t full of scheduled tasks as it is from 8:30am to 6pm. Once the (internal) dinner bell rings, I let my internal chaotic internal monologue whisk me from one whim to another, ready to tackle and create new things, or rest.

Dear body, I’m listening.

Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and I hope you’re able to take some time to listen to your body today too. What is it telling you?

Hop down the rabbit hole? 🐰🕳

^ by Imad

Thoughts
Self
Mental Health
Writing
Freewrite
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