My hobbies are driving me crazy.
What's been interesting for me to watch--and experience for myself--is how doctoral candidates in the diss phase tend to take up hobbies as a distraction from/alternative to spending time on the dissertation. I've had friends take up gourmet cooking, pastry chefing, yoga instructing, oil painting, knitting, gardening, belly dancing, and about a gazillion other productive time-investment sorts of activities.
I like having a few hobbies to help distract me in productive ways from the overly aggressive timeline I have to keep to finish the diss by August/September. While I grew up fat and sedentary (okay, obese and comatose is maybe a better way to describe it), I've found an adult-onset athlete inside in the last few years. I love to run in the woods--very, very slowly--but I get so much satisfaction from an hour out there. It's both a mental and physical break from the time I spend slumped over a keyboard worrying if I'm thinking smart or original or--God help me--marketable thoughts. I also like riding my bikes, off and on road (mostly off, since traffic scares me). I like shopping for new bike stuff. I like saving up for running gadgets and browsing clearance racks for tights or tanks or whatever. And I know that the time I spend in my hobby isn't time burned, but time invested, since this time gives me a healthy reprieve from writing. (I cannot unwind by watching a movie or TV. I just don't have the attention span for it. And games bore me.) The individual act of running or biking forces me to be in the present, forces me to compete only with myself, like Sharon Olds writes, for my own best time. Considering how much time we spend thinking about projects that could potentially spool into years, it's nice to have a task that can be completed in an hour, one that I can touch and experience fully without fear of evaluation.
Oh, but evaluation: I've started entering local races. And I've come in last. While that fact alone wouldn't bother me, it does because of the kinds of people who enter these races. The races are not, in the case of the Montrail Series I've been doing, particularly beginner friendly. At the last Montrail race I entered--a 10K at Panther Creek State Park--40 people ran. I would consider 20 of them elite, 15 very good, 3 or 4 intermediate, and then me and one other woman who entered on a whim and finished a minute ahead of me. So it's not even like I made everyone wait 20 minutes while I poked to the finish, but still, most the crowd was NOT friendly about it. The idiot race director, who I'll call K., started announcing, on my last quarter mile, "Oh look, it's our last racer. Just run through the arch, sweetheart, right HERE." (This is where he pointed to the 20-foot-tall inflatable arch maybe 200 yards in front of me. Yes, K., I see it. Thanks.) "Come on, last runner! Okay everyone, wait just a few more moments while our LAST runner crosses. Then we can get to the prizes! Don't forget to run through the arch so we can get your time!"
You get it. K's an idiot. I felt like an idiot.
So, I love the act, I hate most of the people involved. It's the same 20 people entering these races every time, and with the way [a now unnamed race director] mismanages the races, they're sure to stay small and very local and not-beginner-friendly. But this navigation of shame and fear and self-doubt is no doubt preparing me for my future, but in the present, it rankles me in the worst way.
What about you guys? Any diss-distraction hobbies? What successes or failures?
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8 comments:
You keep entering those races! You are not an idiot. Next time, consider wearing a wacky wig, hat, mustache, and/or t-shirt to a race. A bee costume would be fun. It would be a fun way to thumb your nose at the unfriendly establishment, while, possibly entertaining yourself.
I hate to hear that about the races. Our running "people" here in Lynchburg are very beginner friendly. Plus lots of people do them here. I did come in 7th to last out of 380 not too long ago. Ahem. Not my finest hour. ;)
Sara-
Wow, another reason for me to never start running!! ^_^
I had a couple of dissertation hobbies: cross-stitch, the gym, and my old standby, video games.
What's REALLY fun are post-dissertation hobbies
I can't wait for post-diss hobbies. I like to call that time "real life." Argh.
Debra, I might really invest in something silly. Those people are HARDCORE. Most of them take themselves very seriously.
Sara, yep, the trail races here (at least the Montrail series) aren't very open to newbies. Because it's a points series, everyone's all tweaked about earning points so they can qualify for Ironman or whatever. Sheesh. I'm just out to feel GOOD about myself, you know? But what's funny is that because I'm in a class with few other people (only 3 or 4 women aged 30-35 compete), I'm somewhere near the top of my age group in points. And I suck at this sport.
But the fundraising runs, like the Panther Creek 5-miler, have more people, upwards of 70. I've done a few road races with those big numbers, like Race for the Cure, and they're fun in a different way for me. Most of my trail races have 20-50 people, which means that I stand out.
As the slow kid. I stand out as the slow kid.
The slow kid who finishes the race! I couldn't do that. Keep it up!
Wow, what a terrible and unnecessary way to treat someone. You race for you so keep doing it. While you may finish last occasionally, you are still out there doing it, which is something you should be proud of. Not everyone, in fact hardly anyone, can say the same.
I actually filed a formal complaint about this guy last Saturday. He canceled a race and didn't tell anyone. Big trip for nothin'.
What's sad/funny is that he is the antithesis of an athlete, so it's like he has some kind of grudge against people who try to do it, especially when they're beginners or just not very good. :( He once told me, Well, if only 20 people show up, I'm canceling it. It's not worth my time.
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