Ugh, I just want it to be over.
Yes, I know, this is not the “excited! happy! overjoyed!” sentiment everyone seems to think I should have as I prepare to defend my dissertation on Friday.
Nope, just want it to be over.
The biggest problem is that I have no motivation to actually prepare the defense presentation I have to make. So far it’s been practiced exactly once, and that was in my car on the way to the grocery store this morning. I have something along the lines of, “This is why I went to grad school to study foreign language education policy – so I interviewed this guy for like, 3 years, and then I wrote this. Can you just pass me? I have laundry to do.”
Also I was roaming the ed school yesterday, and two things occurred that made me mad – one guy was talking to a former classmate of mine about dissertations, and I heard him say, “It’s only 100 pages? What, did you write it in a weekend?” Um…. yeah. My dissertation is 120 pages, included appendices. No, I did not write it in a weekend. I did write a lot of it during naptime, though. Then I handed my dissertation to my advisor, and she said, “It’s so short!” To which I responded, “It’s DOUBLE SIDED. Because I wanted to SAVE PAPER.”
Apparently I should just parade around the un-double sided copy, and throw in transcripts of the HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS of interviews I did to get to 120 pages. Oh, and all the unpublished speeches my narrator wrote. And a bunch of unrelated photographs. Honestly, I think that the fact I wrote only 120 pages is amazing. I could have easily written 500. Quality over quantity, right?
So I’m in the throes of a last-minute crisis of confidence. Last night I dreamed (and since when is “dreamt” not a word anymore?) that I showed up for my dissertation defense at 3 on Friday and was like, “Um, can we postpone? Because I’m not ready.” For some reason, I proceeded to then roam around campus, which looked an awful lot like a Tim Burton movie set. And somewhere along in the dream, it came to the fore that I also had to write two more dissertations because I was actually graduating with three PhDs – education, history, and French. And I had to write them in a weekend.
Clearly, this guy got to me. Jerk.
Cole – I feel you pain – my favorite quote on this topic is from Blaise Pascal – something to the effect of ‘I’m sorry this letter is so long, I didn’t have time to make it shorter’.
Long is just long. It is much harder to write something thoughtfully and succintly, without all the superflous bs.
you’re going to do great! i have no doubt each one of those 120 pages was carefully written and and rewritten and then written again – no one knows this stuff like you do. you’re going to do great!
I have a girlfriend who is a “social psychologist” (according to amazon). She wrote her dissertation on women’s views/feelings on their vaginas and how it affected their sexual health. (Not kidding.) Anyway, I remember that her advisor kept telling her to make her dissertation shorter and shorter… which made it much more difficult for her. It ended up being only 50 pages [or something equally unheard of].
Cole, you can do this. You have lived, breathed, and “dreamt” this defense for years. I have 100% faith in you.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering what someone does when they have a PhD revolving around genital health — you write this: http://www.amazon.com/Read-My-Lips-Complete-Vagina/dp/1442208007/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332983881&sr=8-1
Hopefully this made you chuckle a little.