You're right, Daniel

Hi! Daniel, thank you for your comment! Your are right, I shouldn't be telling myself I'm mediocre. That was a strong word. But I am trying to see things differently so I can let go of perfectionism. So I was thinking: it is humanly impossible, if it took me circa 3 months to write each chapter, to want to write two chapters in a week. So much is clear. But it's not humanly impossible to "fake" two chapters in a week. That's the way I'm trying to see it. Then I have three more weeks to fill them up into real chapters and correct a lot. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.
Thanks for your support!!
I'll try and come back to base camp really soon. ;-)

Changing my mindset

I am trying to seriously and completely leave behind the image I had of the "perfect dissertation" that has been looming in my mind for years! And which causes me to panic when I see myself in the always-imagined-situation of "the end" of that also imagined "perfect dissertation". So I am thinking of writing just a paper, just trying to cover as much ground as possible, above all to give it the appearance of a finished, complete and sufficient thing. This is not "that" dissertation!
And I was thinking that I need to be more practical and ruthless ("hacer de tripas corazon") in just leaving things out that I had always planned to include, and really just be a little mediocre... so to speak. No! you see, there it is creeping in again: not just "so to speak", but really dare to be mediocre.
I am hoping for a little of my cultural background from school in Mexico to come to my rescue... just hand something in and fake it a little bit if you have to.

10 days left

Struggling, tired, wind, ice, almost there, but no strength left...
nevertheless there is a ROPE. I can't fall and die.
To tell you the truth I don't feel that great. My confidence is wobbling. I'm trying to think: just hand anything in on the 9th, and then we'll see about all those things left to check, read, quote, etc. Just give something in on the 9th. But I reread what I have of my fourth chapter yesterday and it is not "final text". Now I'm going to change some paragraphs, put some in a more logical order and try to make the text more readable and clear. Some parts of Schelling's book I'm just going to have to skip. I know that 10 days is still a lot of time! It's not nothing! But I'm starting to panic...

I don't want to exagerate or be melodramatic. But I have been wanting to write here that God is that rope that I have, and if I ever make it out of this mountain alive, it will be thanks to him. Just wanted to say that.

Bye! see you on the top, then we can celebrate.

Rastaschelling

I wasn't able to post the song, so you'll just have to imagine it as you did with Walkyrien.
Ok, I too will have to imagine it.
Thank you, spanish outsideworld... ;-)

The deadly cliffs

Hello, here I am with less than two weeks now. I am trying to follow my Dad's advice to keep focused on the target and not to look at any obstacles or think I'm going to fall down the cliff on both sides of the road... It does feel like I'm going downhill very fast and should not stop to think about falling down. The way I translate this is whenever I think "two weeks" in connection with that platonic idea of a dissertation that I have been carrying around in my head for like 8 years or so (!!!), then I am already falling down a very steep and deadly cliff. I could die! "THAT famous dissertation that has been my "life-goal" for so long".... + "only two weeks"??? are you kidding me?
So I am trying to forget that platonic idea altogether, and see what I am writing now as just another "paper" to finish, with this and that point left to explain and fill in.
As for THAT famous immortal dissertation... maybe I will write it some other time.

Thank you for your support. Your messages are my only connection to the outside world now... ;-)

Y ahora quiero mandar un saludo a mi abuelita... no, a la Nena. Don't look at the cliff! Just reach the bottom of the mountain: hand it in without the mathematical solution! can't you do that?

With eyes closed

Hi!
I realize today that it's been a week since I last wrote. Well, that week has not been so great... and you know, I think it has to do with the weather. Since Thursday it's been cloudy and raining again, and everything seems slower, more difficult... maybe I'm just tired. The thing is, I still want to finish this thing, but it's now only two and a half weeks and the voices in my mind say it's not humanly possible to have it ready. They keep making lists of all that I still have to do and won't have time for, and that doesn't let me concentrate properly.
So see here you voices: I am not listening to you anymore. Say what you want. All those things still left to do I can put in afterwards, in June. Right now it's only about writing, only quotes from Schelling and maybe Buchheim, but really only "Schelling and I". After I hand it in in Pamplona we can see about all the other details, quotes, explanations, etc. Ok? Did I make myself clear?

Yes, my friends, maybe I am becoming a little crazy, but hopefull I can get back to normal after a while...
Now to write with eyes (and ears) closed...

staying alive

Hi! Just signing in to tell you that I live, and am trying very desperately to finish and close the third Chapter. It's stealing time from the others!! but it's almost done and came out pretty well, I think. But I'm really worried about the ones missing. Please send your support... Little more than three weeks now! until the deadline for Pamplona...

much better now

Do you guys know what that man in Pi did not do? He did not go to the gym, at least not as far as we viewers could tell. So that was his mistake! ha ha
Seriously, today I was still very "überdreht", "pasada de rosca", English? And it was not a nice feeling and especially it was not helping me write, so I went to the gym and it was great. Now I'm very relaxed so I feel I can begin again, motivated but relatively calm at the same time. So I guess it's like a pot of boiling soup: take it away from the stove just before it spills over, and then put it on the stove again. And again. At least that's the way I do it.
Well, just wanted to let you know.
Bye!

too much brain activity?

Hi my friends! Things are going good. I am really nervous now and willing to do my best, everything else can wait or go to hell! And the past two days have been really good, I've written some pages and have been working really intensively. It's like my brain is doped! and I read everything fast, am very concentrated, think clearly... but almost too much... I'm kind of hysterical, actually, can only thinkg about the problem I'm writing about, etc. That is all fine, since it's just one month now. However, I have had a headache all day today. It feels like it's really coming from too much brain activity... every bit of info is dancing around in my head and connecting with the other bits in many different patterns... So I think I should try to relax a little bit, because there is a point where I'm too hysterical to be writing the arguments step by step and would like to just do everything simultaneously. That and the headache...
Do you remember the movie Pi? I'm not a mathematical genius trying to think the name of God, but it feels remotely like that...

The Battle of Puebla

How must Ignacio Zaragoza have felt? Well I have no idea at the moment of the circumstances before the battle or whether he was very sure of himself or what the deal was, but there he was against one of the most powerful nations of the time... Was it a miracle that we won?
Anyway. I said that the deadline for the contest was in two months, but actually it's only one... In exactly one month I have to send to Spain at least a decoy of a dissertation. That means it must at least look like it's finished!
I am very motivated and plan to give my very best (and last) effort, but it is quite scary. Like the whole French army coming in my direction...
Oh well, here goes nothing:
"Montjoie! Saint-Denis!!"... (sorry, that was the other side... he he.. what would have been our battlecry?)