By Emily Arvay

As the weather warms, it can be increasingly tempting to cast off thesis or dissertation work in favour of a strawberry gelato, or pick-up baseball, or a fluffy beach book. Ironically, it is often during the summer months that graduate students find themselves bogged down with preparing for major field exams, thesis or dissertation writing, or condensed language-requirement courses. For many, the intensity of graduate work during the summer months might mean having to forgo that picnic in the park or rousing beach bonfire. One tactic for warding off such tempting distractions is to pretend, at least temporarily, that summer doesn’t exist. To drown out the squeals of children leaping through sprinklers, you might try losing yourself to the quiet din of a busy library, steady rainfall of a winter storm, or smoothing balm of furniture music. Rather than bemoaning those mint mojitos you’re missing out on, you might try embracing your newfound status as a den-dwelling troglodyte by closing those curtains, silencing those devices, and riding out that tsunami of graduate schoolwork with this ten-hour loop of rainy-day jazz. Although it won’t be easy, you might approach your thesis or dissertation project as you would a sandy band-aid: by pushing through the short-term pain of getting those drafted chapters off to your supervisory committee as quickly as possible. Then, once sent, you can treat yourself to a much-deserved break. Long-awaited, that beach-side lemonade will taste all-the-sweeter.

About the author:

Emily Arvay completed her PhD at the University of Victoria in 2019 with her thesis “Climate Change, the Ruined Island, and British Metamodernism.”  Since then she has worked as a Learning Strategist and EAL Specialist at the University of Victoria. She is currently conducting further research on the intersections between literary metamodernism and contemporary climate fictions.