Obviously written by one who knows the pit of despair.
Posted by binky at October 20, 2006 05:21 PM | TrackBack | Posted to The Academythe purgatorio of the dissertation, a phase of human devolution about which I have absolutely nothing positive or inspiring to offer. For much of the 3.5 years I spent working on mine, I greeted each morning with a millstone of despair hanging around my neck, the weight lifted only slightly by the realization that I might be flattened at any moment by a city bus or a plummeting aircraft. However small that chance might have been, it offered me a reason to shuffle out of bed. One day while I was staring numbly at the walls, a group of marginally literate gnomes broke into my apartment and wrote 314 pages of prose, which I promptly submitted under my own name to the University of Minnesota.
1. Only 3.5 years? Lame. I took 2.25 just for my overview (20 drafts). The dissertation itself took 5.5 (3 complete re-writes; 3 partial re-writes).
2. I had passed the point where I wanted a bus or airplane to flatten me: I was hoping it would land on my committee. Self-destruction isn't nearly as cool as homicide.
3. 314? Ha. 410. With an appendix.
4. Maybe I should have submitted it to Minnesota. I might have finished earlier.
Posted by: baltar at October 20, 2006 10:25 PM | PERMALINKYou should have been a Latin Americanist. All about the quantitative efficiency!
Posted by: binky at October 20, 2006 10:36 PM | PERMALINK