The Five Stages of Letting Go of My Dissertation

[librisia]

Denial - Oh, yes, if I'm really serious, I can do interviews, cajole the asshole priest into not finding me threatening and write my dissertation in a timely fashion while holding down the full-time job I need to have to pay my more than $100,000 in student loans.  Yes I can!

Anger - There's no fucking way I can finish this fucker.  Fucker!  Fucking

Comments

[sovevuni]

I had the same thoughts regarding scholars with WIVES to do everything else beside writing... Yeah, I can relate. :(

[max_ambiguity]

Don't forget scholars with husbands or significant others of any kind, particularly when those people have jobs that bring in enough money to pay for time-saving services like childcare, eating out/food delivery, housecleaning (whether regularly or in times of crisis), purchasing books rather than relying on spotty library service, etc.

[bobbipynn]

I'm finishing up my MA thesis in anthro, did research with Jesus praisers and demon chasers, now working in research 30hrs/week to release myself from debt bondage (although i'm in Canada, so it's not as bad as it could be), my supervisor was AWOL from September 2006 until TODAY and NO ONE has read a word of my thesis.

Nice to know someone else is burning in that very same circle of hell! I'm oscillating between acceptance, apathy, insanity, and HATER-dom. Hope you find the path to salvation eventually :)

[librisia]

Nice to know someone else is burning in that very same circle of hell! I'm oscillating between acceptance, apathy, insanity, and HATER-dom. Hope you find the path to salvation eventually :)

We're obviously sitting right next to eachother in the boat and didn't see one another. Very nice to meet you. :-)

[artemidite]

Oh god.....I can relate. My adviser was very hands off, which I LOVED, but my second reader, whom my adviser seemed to want feedback from, refused to read my thesis until one week before my defense.

I didn't enjoy my second reader at ALL.

[sugar_spun]

Acceptance: I just have to get the fucking thing written so I can get a proper job and stop hating myself. I'll clean my desk, organise my papers, and then when everything's taken care of I'll write.

I demand a minimum of 500 words per day of myself. It's short enough that I can get there on bad days, and on good days I'm only starting, so if need be I can write my entire week's worth of words, get ahead of myself and then take a day off!

[owl_of_minerva]

I would love a demanding, invasive advisor. I don't tend to take my own personal deadlines as seriously as I should.

(my advisor has legitimate reasons for not being as demanding as he could, and I make do. But still. The regimen yours put you on sounds great. Go heteronomy!)

[ladyshrew]

::giggles::

Also, if you look through old disserations, the wives were often the ones typing the disserations too so that people could actually read them (they insert thank yous to themselves).

Clearly, I need a manservant to do these menial tasks for me. :-P

Or uh, maybe I should just get off LJ and work. :-P

[librisia]

Wyrd, sister.

In all fairness, I have a loving, supportive sugar daddy, but he doesn't run the day-to-day shit because he's actually out working so that we can just barely not pay our bills. So, I'm taking the day off of work to do all the dumb shit that has to be done, do the dishes before the babysitter gets here so I can go do my homework, blah, blah, blah.

/whining

[chatnoire]

here here.

My adoring husband is also a full time grad student, a full time employee and makes sure our houses doesn't fall down. I'm not working on a dissertation, but on a terminal degree of my own, while workign full time, and damn. If I wasn't married.....

[diotina]

Thank you for articulating my sense of frustration and discontent so efficiently. It helps to know I'm not alone.