Two days down. Three to go.
What my advisor told me is unsurprisingly actually true so far: it is actually kind of fun. The four hours flies past. It’s just playing with ideas and writing.
One thing it is teaching me is I can crank out 7-8 not too terrible pages a day if I actually sit my butt in a chair and work in a highly focused manner for four hours straight. And it is not even unpleasant. I feel energized, if slightly dazed, when I am done.
So yeah, it’s really not that big a deal, though I never believed any of the other doctoral students ahead of me who told me that.