No matter how excited you are about going back to school, no matter how right it is that you have decided to pursue a PhD, no matter how good it feels to be teaching and sitting around tables talking about performance and theatre and ideas, and no matter how much you like reading, learning, and writing, when you actually sit down with you schedule and syllabi and workload and map out what’s due when, that’s when the fear sets in.
Can I do this? Am I going to be able to keep up with the readings? Shit, I have to write about 60-70 pages worth of various papers and other assignments as well as doing all the reading and teaching my classes and ohmigod was I insane for thinking this is what I should be doing?
The fear goes away, but have no doubt, it does appear. For me, that was last night after getting all my various assignments put into my task manager and having a good overview of what I needed to accomplish this semester. Suddenly, I was terrified that I’ve forgotten how to do this, that I’m not as smart or as capable as I think I am and now everybody is going to find that out.
It passed, and today I spent a considerable amount of time reading for one of my classes and expect to do that same tomorrow (with a couple of breaks to do some podcasting work for PTP and PodCastle), with Monday set aside to do more reading, but also planning out the classes I’m teaching for the week and writing my first short assignment–a review of an encyclopedia article (Futurism). There will be more moments of doubt and fear along the way, but that is to be expected with any venture that is worthwhile and that entails some level of struggle and self-challenge. But for now, I’ve taken a deep breath, I’ll keep my task list open and check things off as I go, and get myself busy doing this thing.
And hopefully having some fun with it as well.