My final judgment on Ritalin is still suspended as I continue to mess around with finding the right dose—one large enough to have some effect on my concentration whilst small enough to allow me to avoid clenching my jaw all day and other random side effects. Right now I'm on 36 mg/day of Concerta, an extended-release form of Ritalin. Unless I'm imagining things, I believe it does give me that added push to plunge in and work on something that would otherwise seem too odious—whether making a Christmas card address list or doing anything related to my dissertation. It's like someone giving you a little push when you're standing at the edge of the pool, reluctant to jump in. Same with kick-starting the day in general—it wakes me up the way a cup of espresso would. What won't it do? Alas, it won't:
- Add more hours to my day. I still have to find and block out the time needed for my dissertation myself. Between working 30 hours a week at my job, trying to cook and work out occasionally, and hanging out with Mr. Flossie, this is tricky. Lately (very lately, like this week), I might have caught on to a schedule that will work for a while: work 8:30-3, go to the library study carrel and dissertate 3-6 Monday through Friday.
- Make my dissertation seem more interesting. I still have to repress the thought that I'm spending untold hours of my life on something five people will ever read—and worse than that, that I would only want five people to ever read. I've never written a diss before, obviously, so I don't know what I'm doing...and there are structural things I've done that I already realize I would do differently, but I'm on this road now, and it's too late to go back.
- Make me work faster. I still ruminate endlessly.
- Make me smarter. I still read high theory and think, "What the hell did I just read?"
- Make it easier to remember what I was doing. Even one day off, and I have to make up time by figuring out where I was in my thought process.
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