Quantifying

I’ve spent all weekend differentiating between quantitative and qualitative time in the conference paper I was writing and it started me thinking about how we quantify things in our lives. For example, I started in September saying I would write about an hour a day Monday-Thursday and try to get about 1000 words on the page in that hour which I know was a big goal. I was also increasing my writing time in November (i.e. now) to 2 hours a day which I guess means I was trying to hit 2000 words a day but I know that is very much trying to be an overachiever. I am going to stick to 1500 for now, but since I had a difficult go of it in the middle of October where I was probably writing anywhere from 350-700 instead of 1000 words I am going to try to go easy on myself.

 November I can say is actually going quite well. Since the beginning of the month (and we are only on day 5) I have written 1 conference paper, and 3 blog posts (one that already came out on a different platform here and the other two are scheduled to appear over the next few days). The 3 blog posts total about 1500 words and the conference paper is 3000 words. So I think that I can safely say I am over my October slump. I want to try to be a bit more aware of the amount that I am writing so that I can see trends. It will also allow me to not feel so bad when I have to take the foot off the gas for a bit or if a blog concept doesn’t come to me as readily as it sometimes does (like this morning’s commute, where I just sat thinking instead of writing, and then I felt guilty because grad school guilt is real and stays forever, which is why I am doing all my blog posting now because I feel a tad inspired).

 But quantifying has built-in issues. Almost everything in education is quantified, and some is for good reason, other needs for quantification require a bit more analysis and systems awareness. An acquaintance was telling a story about how there’s no built-in structure to take illness into account when doing a post-doc. I have never held a post-doc so I do not know about the ways they are administered, but this seems to me like another example of how education quantifies time in non-divisible units, in one big linear chunk that doesn’t take life into account.

My path went undergrad degree 4 years (but then I did another part-time years later because sometimes you have a calling), Masters 1 year, Phd 5.5 years (but I was only funded for 4 years). I also know there are those who have had/are having a more difficult situation than I did. Those last 18 months of my PhD were a scramble of finding part-time teaching to pay rent and bills while simultaneously working on my project, but my story is common, too common. This is because the expectations of time frames and systems in place are very strict in some/most places. It goes back to funding, admissions, it's quantified turtles all the way down.

I wonder if we started thinking more of qualified turtles instead of quantified ones, how things would go? Just a thought, and something to ponder- another 600 words to add to the quantity, it’s up to you to decide the quality. Have a good evening!