Burning the candle at both ends: Justification for PhD?

I’ve always had a habit of doing too many things.  About a week and a half before my grandma died, she got onto me about “burning the candle at both ends.”  She kept telling me, “If you burn the candle at both ends you’ll run out of wick and be left in the dark.”  This was during my second semester in grad school when I had picked a thesis topic and began my research, was in the middle of rehearsals for a show I was in about a week later, and in significantly harder classes than my first semester.  I had also gotten a research assistantship in lieu of one of my classes, so I had 2 teaching preps and a research load.  You could definitely say that I was burning the candle at both ends. 

We went to a Chinese restaurant, one of my favorite places in Northfield, Mandarin Garden.  The meal itself was mostly insignificant, discussing my research with my grandpa, and watching my grandma struggle to get any kind of food down.  The significant part of that meal was the message in my fortune cookie: “Be careful not to burn the candle at both ends.”  My grandma burst out laughing, and simply said “See? What did I tell you?” 

I’m sorry grandma.  I can’t shake the habit….

Even after she died, I continued to burn the candle at both ends.

She died the week before finals week.  I planned a good part of the funeral alongside my grandpa, delivered a eulogy, and was on the plane next day.  Off the plane, immediately to a final exam, followed by another final the next day, grading finals, grading papers, and the worst paper I’ve ever written (7 pages of 15 page minimum, mostly of tangents, and I don’t know how many grammatical errors and typos), earning the only C on a paper I’ve ever received in grad school.  (And yeah, it totally deserved the C.)  I then spent the next summer in the most intense and insane teaching program I’ve ever been in or heard of.  Over the summer I taught over 600 students between the ages of 5 and 65.  I went from that without a break into my final year of graduate school, during which I attempted to finish my thesis and instead ended my relationship with Pat.  Both of those “failures” I reconciled in therapy the next summer. 

And still, I burn the candle at both ends.  I double book social events on the same day, try to work several jobs and think “maybe I’ll start volunteering.” 

I sit and reflect, this very minute, so that I stop burning the candle for one hour (maybe more), letting the wax cool and reform to a solid, and be ready to burn again later.

This is what my last few days have looked like:

Thursday:

9am-12: grading and lesson prep, alternating with laundry and dishes and other random house stuff

12-1: errands (CVS, grocery store, gas, etc)

1-4: Editing performance script and prepping lesson during office hours

4:5:30- Teaching

6-9: memorize memorize memorize memorize

SLEEP (wow, decent sleep! Yeah!)

Friday:

9am-12: MEMORIZE MEMORIZE MEMORIZE MEMORIZE

12-2: figure out costume and then get into costume

2-5: rehearse in Black Box, prep for show.

5-6:30: Grad student/faculty showcase

6:30-7:30: try not to die during break.

7:30-9: Grad student/faculty showcase

9-10:15: Hooligans for K____’s birthday

10:15-11:15: Drive to pick up S____ and C____

11:15-11:45: Drive to Dallas

12:00-1: Sue Ellen’s Drag King Show

1-2:30: S4

2:30-3:00: Try really hard to find out where the fuck I parked in Dallas.

3:00-4:00 (FOUR AM PEOPLE, FOUR O’FUCKING’CLOCK AM): Drive home.

Saturday:

6:00am (SIX AM. SIX FUCKING AM.): Wake up, begrudgingly.

6:30am: Wake up again, begrudgingly.

7:00am: Finally put clothes on because I’m acting like a child.

7:20-8:30: Drive to Colleyville

8:30-7:30pm: Judging, judging, judging, judging, all of the judging, listening to high school freshmen talk about Kant, listening to high school seniors fuck up “hegemony” over and over and over, and more and more judging.

7:30-8:30pm: Drive home

8:30-9:30pm: Answer SO MANY EMAILS I didn’t get because I haven’t been at my computer

9:45-10:30pm: Dinner

10:45pm: Pass the fuck out.

Sunday (as in today)

9am-10am: General fucking around, writing lists because they are “productive.”

10-12: grading

12-12:30: admin shit (audit rolls and the like)

[side note, I hope you’ve noticed that as time has progressed on this report I’ve gotten more bitter and have been cursing a lot more.  That’s intentional.]

12:30-3: Thesis

3-4: NAP. BECAUSE.

4-5:30: Convincing myself to do something, by which I mean talking to Rose Tyler.

6:00-7:20: Dinner

7:20-NOW: Writing. Because I can’t do other shit.

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See, I’m not even in grad school anymore and somehow, I’m still getting myself into situations where I have to think about things for a whole day on 2 hours of sleep.  I can do it, but it’s getting a LOT harder than it used to be.

I came out of my performance on Friday feeling fantastic, and had a really great time judging at the debate tournament despite near delirium from limited sleep, and after some strange turn of events at Sue Ellen’s and S4, I came home thinking ,“You know what? I’m really happy single and doing these other great things. Why in the name of holy Batman am I dating?” A question I still can’t really answer.  Maybe it’s just another thing to keep me busy.  (Or fodder for writing, perhaps.)

Contrary to my grandma’s dying wishes, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop burning the candle at both ends. I prefer the busy and sleepless life.  You’ll never have stories from the nights you had plenty of sleep, right? 

What I’m really trying to say is…..PhD?