Division III: The Never-Ending Story
The week and a half have had some wonderful moments and some of the hardest I've faced in recent memory.
Yesterday, I had my second-to-last meeting with my committee. The meeting was overwhelmingly negative and critical towards my work, however all in all I agreed with their critiques. But there are some problems first and foremost that they waited so long to actually be critical of my work. I have been very careful to always give them copies of my drafts as I finished parts. Our meetings until this one have been both of them telling me how "Amazing" my work is and how I have nothing to worry about and then they complain about how terrible their students are for another thirty minutes. I have been giving them my Division III in pieices since January, so I find it very hard to believe they only have just noticed these significant problems and instead waited until literally the last possible moment to spring them all on me.
Its hard for me not to be really angry at my Division III committee for, as others have put it, 'screwing you over'. Even worse, is I'm gathering this kind of sudden 360* turn for committees at the last minute is very common. With the emotional and intellectual anguish I am going through with this, I am even more pained to know there are others feeling as I do after being forced into the same situation.
With a little less then a week before my "Final Draft" is due their expectations of me pretty much re-writing (to fix the 'tone' of the paper), doing additional research, and re-organizing my entire Division III whilst refining it to the point of being "finished". That is impossible, particularly since the paper is about 150 pages. I understand the purpose of a Division III is to be a challenge, but this close to the end I am exhausted, my resolve at the breaking point, and very little remaining of my initial zeal towards the project.
Up until now, I've counted myself very lucky that my Division III hasn't made me go totally insane like it has done to some of my other friends. Nor have I not slept as the result of my Division III. Its like a sick rite of passage that yesterday after coming back from a spontaneous trip to Vermont that I returned to my room and just sobbed until my eyes couldn't yield anymore tears. Considering how little I let myself cry these days it was a wonderful feeling actually just letting it all out and I wished afterwards as I lay awake with my mind racing with anxieties and fears that I could have kept crying just to get everything out. But there are limits to these things, I guess.
I have a meeting at 1:15 with my committee chair. I an fantasized about finally standing up to her and calling her out on just about everything she's done to me. But those are fantasies for a reason. I am going to stand up for myself and I hope to determine with her what I can achieve with only a week left. I plan to talk to her and determine what (realistically) I MUST do, SHOULD do, and COULD do in this final week. I am terrified that the year of really hard, challenging, and frankly good work I've done this year to be thrown out the window and be overshadowed by what I do or fail to do in the very last week of my Division III.
The upside of all of this, and I hate to say this as it seems twisted but, I haven't felt this alive in a long time. Life is sweet, life is pain. Life is always amazing. I know in time all of this will seem distant and hopefully I'll look back on it positively.
Yesterday, I had my second-to-last meeting with my committee. The meeting was overwhelmingly negative and critical towards my work, however all in all I agreed with their critiques. But there are some problems first and foremost that they waited so long to actually be critical of my work. I have been very careful to always give them copies of my drafts as I finished parts. Our meetings until this one have been both of them telling me how "Amazing" my work is and how I have nothing to worry about and then they complain about how terrible their students are for another thirty minutes. I have been giving them my Division III in pieices since January, so I find it very hard to believe they only have just noticed these significant problems and instead waited until literally the last possible moment to spring them all on me.
Its hard for me not to be really angry at my Division III committee for, as others have put it, 'screwing you over'. Even worse, is I'm gathering this kind of sudden 360* turn for committees at the last minute is very common. With the emotional and intellectual anguish I am going through with this, I am even more pained to know there are others feeling as I do after being forced into the same situation.
With a little less then a week before my "Final Draft" is due their expectations of me pretty much re-writing (to fix the 'tone' of the paper), doing additional research, and re-organizing my entire Division III whilst refining it to the point of being "finished". That is impossible, particularly since the paper is about 150 pages. I understand the purpose of a Division III is to be a challenge, but this close to the end I am exhausted, my resolve at the breaking point, and very little remaining of my initial zeal towards the project.
Up until now, I've counted myself very lucky that my Division III hasn't made me go totally insane like it has done to some of my other friends. Nor have I not slept as the result of my Division III. Its like a sick rite of passage that yesterday after coming back from a spontaneous trip to Vermont that I returned to my room and just sobbed until my eyes couldn't yield anymore tears. Considering how little I let myself cry these days it was a wonderful feeling actually just letting it all out and I wished afterwards as I lay awake with my mind racing with anxieties and fears that I could have kept crying just to get everything out. But there are limits to these things, I guess.
I have a meeting at 1:15 with my committee chair. I an fantasized about finally standing up to her and calling her out on just about everything she's done to me. But those are fantasies for a reason. I am going to stand up for myself and I hope to determine with her what I can achieve with only a week left. I plan to talk to her and determine what (realistically) I MUST do, SHOULD do, and COULD do in this final week. I am terrified that the year of really hard, challenging, and frankly good work I've done this year to be thrown out the window and be overshadowed by what I do or fail to do in the very last week of my Division III.
The upside of all of this, and I hate to say this as it seems twisted but, I haven't felt this alive in a long time. Life is sweet, life is pain. Life is always amazing. I know in time all of this will seem distant and hopefully I'll look back on it positively.