Dissertation progress

I am deeply thankful that work on my dissertation has been progressing! My hope to hand some things in before the end of October seems to be attainable. I've completed several sections in chapter 3 that only need some revision before I can hand them in to my supervisor, and I've begun work on revisions in Chapter 1 so that I can hand that in to my second supervisor. That's not to say that Chapter 3 doesn't still have a lot of work that needs to be done on the other chapters in it. I'll be handing in something on Ezek 19, 23, 10, and 5, but I still need to do a lot of work on the section on chapters 3, 18 and 33, as well as chapters 36 and 1, of which I have no immediate "answers" for the problems and quite a bit of literature still to cover for ch.1.

There is thus much still left to be done, but as I have a much clearer idea of what that still is and how to go about doing it, this is a sign of (significant) progress. Focusing so much on it in August has helped give me momentum. It takes less effort to get into writing and revising every day, and it happens every day. Even though my primary task in life at the moment is writing this dissertation, it felt like there was often a lot of other things that would take over much of my time: from household things, to mails, to community things, to editing stuff, to who knows what. On top of that, there wasn't a sense of urgency and so I would also happily distract myself with numerous useless things throughout the day. Although the distracting myself part hasn't entirely gone away, it has been at least pushed back by my sense of duty and even joy in writing and working on the dissertation.

Sometimes it'd be nice to feel like I could just work on it ALL THE TIME until it gets done. Eat, drink and sleep questions of cohesion in the book of Ezekiel. It would then at least be done and sooner! Yet, trying to devote all my time to my dissertation isn't sustainable on a long term basis, at least not unless I choose actively to temporarily give up other important things in my life: community, volunteering with Salvation Army, supporting Matthijs more through running the household. And I'm not willing to do that. But choosing to devote so much time and energy to it for awhile has also been a blessing - the push I needed to move towards the finish. The hope is that at the end of December I'll have a good first draft by my supervisors....

I'll try to keep the update on the side of this blog regularly updated, so you can be updated (and pray along with me) about its progress. And since it feels like it's going well, you can now finally ask again how the dissertation is going without worrying about whether this is actually a painful question :) I am truly thankful for all the interest and the support I receive.