It was unusual that I slept more than 12 hours a day for four consecutive days this week.
After waking up, I spent the day reading, writing and teaching, and I still felt sleepy. This made me feel stressed, like “What unproductive days! How stupid I am”.
I concentrated on writing up my ethics forms on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The period of time when I was writing them was productive. After submitting them, I went for dinner with my PhD colleagues.
During our dinner, I talked about my anxieties to my colleagues to get some advice. They told me about how they felt the same way during the first six-month period and how they became more confident as they progressed. They cheered me up, but my worries never vanish, maybe because they look clever enough to deal with it.