Things I do to avoid my thesis...aka Avertivities

Over the last few years, so many things have happened to delay the completion of my doctorate.

First, I became boyfriended. Now, that was a lovely turn of events indeed, however my boyfriend (now fiance) has this strange desire for us to spend lots of quality time together. As a result, when our relationship progressed my productive research weekends, evenings, and 2 a.m. writing sessions quickly vanished. Ultimately, this chain of events was one of the best things that ever happened to me, but I can't deny that it slashed my available work-time like a chainsaw-wielding three-year-old.

On top of this, my boyfriend came with a healthy appetite and, suddenly, I was cooking every night. Like *real* cooking. English-style. From scratch. I hasten to add that this was not a stipulation of the relationship, but grew from my deep desire to see him happy - and good food makes him happy. Now, good food makes me happy too, but when I was single and in research mode dining on crackers and cheese was totally acceptable. These days I'm a veritable Donna Reed in comparison.

Then, I got ill...very, very ill. The kind of ill where you wind up hospitalized for several months and things get a bit crazy. About two years of serious research/writing time was swallowed up by illness. That really sucked, but I'm happy to report that I am getting back to normal now.

Considering that I've encountered such massive delays, one would think that my every waking non-quality-time/cooking/ill moment would be spent on my thesis. Ashamedly, that is not the case. Instead, I have developed tons of things to do when research/writing are just too much to bear. These things have a name; they are my avertivities.

Avertivities are not like general procrastination efforts; they are much more cunning; they are actually productive. While doing avertivities you can say to yourself, 'I should be doing this right now because it needs to be done,' when, in reality, it is the last thing you should be doing. In fact, the lack of time you have to do what you really should be doing suggests that you never should have gotten the idea to do what you are actually doing in the first place. But our minds don't act like that. Too bad for us.

My greatest avertivity for awhile now has been knitting. I learned to knit when I was little and revived my interest after I fell ill (I needed something to do when I realized hospital drugs were not nearly as fun as people say. Liars.). It is a lovely hobby, but it does take some time. Still, at least it's better than staring at Google all day.

Current avertivities in progress:

1. 'Tempting' sweater.
2. 'Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks' scarf
   
   
   
3. 'A Hat Fit for a Boyfriend' hat