I am skipping my scheduled supervision because I just don't have the drafts of my Introduction and Chapter One ready, sigh, I have worked on them very hard but I just can't meet any deadlines I set myself. I worked for well over 10 hours editing yesterday until my brain imploded and I was questioning everything. It is all very well to set these deadlines but it just feels like everything will in reality take so much longer.

On one hand the editing seems more straightforward because I have distance from the writing, but then after a few pages of re-writing every line I just get depressed about how crappy some of it is. I also feel sort of trapped behind some wall and I just can't push through to get these things done, I can see how they need to be and what I need to do but I just can't get there. Even straightforward things like finishing footnotes and I have the books and texts and I can't even get up to get the books and finish them.

I think all this feels compounded by teaching a ubject I feel is rubbishy and have zero enthusiasm for, which I also think represents the future of unis, including more of this badly paid teaching, but unfortunately being badly paid is better than being completely poor. Honestly, what is the point of having a PhD if all it guarantees is really badly paid teaching of subjects I don't even like?