How to get out of absenteeism pattern?

[random_grad]

I am in 3rd year of PhD, I finished coursework last term. Now I have teaching, fellowship applications, a research project I'm leading and 2 side jobs to help supplement the stipend. And, supposedly, my dissertation (whom am I kidding?).

Plus, I'm also enrolled into an intermediate language course, which meets daily, but which is not required for my degree.

Going to class is utterly out of sync with the rest of my stuff. I started by not doing the homework, because every evening I would be done with all my other stuff and feel exhausted. I kept telling myself that I'll catch up once deadline 1 will be over; then when deadline 2 will be over; etc.

Over the October long week-end I missed several classes because teacher 2 (we have 2 teachers) did not allow me to skip turn when I really had no idea what to say. I started feeling ashamed and angry. Come the end of October, I skipped an entire week. I would do homework, come to campus, but make myself late by visiting some shop on the way, and then I'd feel too ashamed to show up late and so would skip the class for which I prepared.

This Saturday was the last major deadline of the semester.

Today I went to the administration hoping to drop the course. It is now past the deadline and they are not making it easy, for which I am grateful. I am meeting with teacher 1 tomorrow. My friends mostly just say they would support me if I drop. My mom says I should swallow my pride and keep going; that 5 years from now I'll regret dropping this language.

Theoretically, I would be able to catch up to a point of getting maybe a B in the course. So I probably should continue.

 

My question is: what would be some helpful motivational techniques for getting out of this absenteeism pattern?

Basically, I would appreciate positive comments conducive to continuing.

[fuzzylogician]

So, the way I think about these things has to do with priorities. Do I want to do it? Do I need to do it? I don't like doing things half-assed in a way that makes me feel bad -- but I do sometimes choose to do less than perfect work in ways that I find acceptable. So basically, I think it's okay to drop the class if you don't need it and don't want to do it anymore, but if you choose to stay, then you need to decide how to do enough work to make yourself happy. At the end of the day, when you're done with grad school, the grades and assignments won't matter, but your language proficiency will. It's up to you to decide how much time to invest in it and what to prioritize. If you ask me, language proficiency is important, and believe it or not, there aren't going to be very many better times to pick up a new language than now. 

As for getting yourself to go, there are small things you can do. I get a disproportionate amount of happiness out of crossing things off to-do lists. In this kind of case, I might even add "go to class" as an item every day just so I get to cross it off separately from "do homework" and whatever else is required. Set small goals and reward yourself at the end of the week. We should be compassionate with ourselves when things get hard. 

(That said, I dropped out of a language class my last semester of grad school, because there were just WAY too many other things going on, like dissertation writing and interviews, and I was missing too much class to enjoy it anymore. No shame in that, either!)

[random_grad]

3 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

add "go to class" as an item every day

love this idea.

thank you for your comment! It is true that I can't really imagine when would be the next time I'd have an opportunity to learn a language.