I have tried all sorts of incentives and bribes. I try depriving myself of food until it's done. I try drinking a litre of water and then telling myself I can't pee until it's done. I try turning off my wireless adapter and cutting off my beloved internet connection until it's done.
None of this has worked. Dizzying hunger, my bladder, and my insatiable need to read about anything online always puts a damn wrench in my plans.
But finally, after months of procrastination and 4 days of solid, honest work, it's done. Weighing in at a sizeable 32 pages, chapter one of my thesis has been submitted to my supervisor. Seeing as I can now barely speak in proper sentences after shoving that many words onto paper, I shudder to think how strange I will feel when the whole shebang is done. My whole vocabulary (including key words that communication profs love such as "pervasive" and "ubiquitous") went onto those pages. I've got nothing left!
Last night, quitting at midnight, I decided to relax by making rice pudding (see above). Simmering milk during the wee hours and then eating the whole yield in one sitting is enough to make a lady feel crazy. It suited me just fine.
Another key distraction has been this book, for which I had to venture into the Teen Fiction department of the bookstore and endure a smirk from the employee who directed me there. Rozzie has warned me that I may develop a "book crush" on the fictional vampire in the story. As reading and writing are now my full-time "job," stories and words are steadily melding with my reality. A book crush at this point would not surprise me at all. In fact, I would welcome it.
Sorry, Brian.
6 comments:
I had to definitely endure the Bookstore-Employee-Smirk when I asked for the location of 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn', which, for whatever reason, is also in the teen fiction section. And yet Sophie Kinsella gets to sit next to Dostoevsky and the Brontes. Weird.
Grad school is totally about earning a Masters or Ph.D in battling procrastination... congrats on the chapter!
Erin- do I sense you might share my hatred for sophie kinsella? I have read 3 of the Shopaholic series and tried to like them for what they are (chick lit fluff), but I can't stand them!
Emmett- Both of my media words of choice came from you, when you gave me advice on one of my papers you edited for me in undergrad. I have used them in almost every paper since.
I read the Shopaholic books as well (the first few in the series, not the recent ones that I keep seeing in Chapters) and while they aren't the WORST things I've ever read, I find the main character REALLY unlikable. It's hard to root for a heroine who is basically an idiot - very Paris Hilton, if she were British and poor. During the third novel, I kept hoping her fiance would leave her - not a good sign. I'm a snob about books (I love my classics and my Irving) but chick lit can be fun sometimes - I like the series that Emily Giffen did - if it's to be ENJOYABLE fluff. Oh, well. To each their own, I guess?
Haha. That's kinda of cool... although part of me also feels like apologizing! ;)
A book crush is better than a play crush any day. My sister once got a crush on Edmund the Bastard in King Lear. He turned out to be a real (SPOILER ALERT) bastard.
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