...and she's already procrastinating. I got up early, with the expressed purposes of: a.) typing up the cover letter for the fax I'm sending my bank, with the confirmation of enrollment form; b.) printing the final final copy of my thesis and having it couriered to Dr. B. Oh and c.) would help: starting all the readings for my American history class, so that I'm not cramming while Matt's here. But none of that has started yet. Of course not.
I finished the final revisions of my thesis, as requested by my committee, last night. I found myself sifting through the notes of three different academics: two readers and the external. That's when I discovered that I struggle with feeling rebellious when I'm dealing with the editing comments of someone else. I found myself yelling at Dr. Department Head, in absentia, "Actually, you're wrong! That verb should be plural in that case, and I'm not going to change it to your incorrect singular case! It's funny that you're the only one of the three who is trying to make me do this! Do you want me to consult Strunk and White? I'll do that, if you make me." Like, out loud. I think Chris now finds me crazy. Oh wait: he already knew.
I also found myself panicking because I found an extra piece of paper among the revision notes, which lists a recent article that has just been published on Irmgard Keun, written in the external examiner's handwriting. "Does he want me to integrate the research from this article somehow? That's impossible!" Then I remembered my defence, and how he had recommended I check out this recent article when I research my dissertation (which will be on the same topic). Oh yes: he also told me he'd write down the reference.
One other realisation: no one noticed the missing "not." Did they all assume that the characters became Nazi sympathisers? The external even underlined that line as an important one. No one challenged me on it, even though I emphasised their very non-Nazi sentiments in the defence. Weird. It's also weird how many editors it takes to notice all of the typographical errors. I noticed a bunch when I re-read it, Dr. B read through all the previous drafts several times, and all three readers were noticing different errors and problems than each other.
Okay. And...working. Any minute now.
3 comments:
Poor Maryanne. Oh, so very busy. Oh, so very much convincing me that maybe I don't want to go back to school to do a masters (even though I probably should). I hope you get your work done, but don't worry too much on my account; I'm really not that demanding of a house guest. I'll be talking to you soon.
I'm at the other end of the scale. I deliberately slept in til 11:30 this morning, so I am well rested as I try to finish off my paper. I've been working on it, but now I'm taking a break. Ultimate procrastination. Aaah.
Ah, it's not too busy. I was just trying to get everything done this morning, which I did! I now have the completed revision of my thesis beside me, and everything in place for me to run to the University and fax my bank. Now all that's left is the journal articles, but that shouldn't be too bad.
And Matt: I won't be that crazy this week. Even my Tuesday class is cancelled!
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