my life, my pace

FINALLY! I completed my first draft of my dissertation last Thursday, just in time to go on vacation! I can’t believe it took so long and all I wrote was 94 double-spaced pages. Looking back, it was really my own inertia that prevented me from finishing…the task just seemed so monumental that there was no point in starting, even when I had already finished everything but the discussion. I literally sat on my ass and watched my puppy for three weeks instead of working on it. When I finally did start writing again, all it took was a week for me to finish! Of course, it’s not done until I get my committee’s signatures and turn it in, which will probably require several painful revisions, but at least I’m over the first hurdle. I just hope my major professor can put his narcissism aside for a moment and not nitpick every word I’ve written. Not likely, but I can still dream…

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1. me? i’m kinda screwedTwo months ago, I was supposed to start writing my dissertation. Or at least that's when my major professor thinks I started writing my dissertation. At first, I put it off for a week. I just needed one more week to slack off before I got serious, I swore. Then one week became two. Then I decided to wait until Christmas break. Surely, I would get so bored that I would just have to start writing. But my lovely brother got me ...
2. i’m still alive…barelySo I couldn't do it. I couldn't finish my thesis by two days ago. I was making progress last week. Not fast enough, of course, because who really can write 20 pages of scientific stuff a day? But last Wednesday, I made it to page 25 and I was proud. I was done with Materials & Methods and I was proud (well except for the fact that my thesis was going to be woefully short). So then I set about starting the results section. And realized that the data my major professor wanted me to use didn't exist. So then I got stuck because the major professor was out of the country. Then I got all despondent because it was feeling like I was never going to finish my thesis and be done with grad school. But I couldn't stay despondent for long because I had to make that pesky poster for my little conference thing tomorrow. Which I only managed to barely finish last night just in time to get it printed at Kinko's for a handsome sum. And now I really hate Microsoft because it really shouldn't have taken that long. And I'm also far too lazy to start working on my thesis again. So I'm lounging around enjoying the nice weather and silently freaking out about my thesis inside. But, yes, I'm still alive....
3. on second thought…I'm kinda screwed. Let's count the ways: 1) My hypotheses suck. In my defense, I knew they sucked and I didn't want to go with them, but my major professor made me. And now I get to look like an idiot when my committee member calls them "naive." 2) My results suck. It's not good when your baseline measurements are significantly different from each other. 3) My discussion sucks. That would be because no one told me how to write a dissertation discussion. And also because my hypotheses and results suck. So yeah, I spent a week sulking over these sad facts. I finally got off my ass and started working on my revision today. And it's not fun....

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