Week 4 — Random Thoughts
Is it fucking over yet?
I never thought it would be possible to be so fed up with something as innocuous looking as a dissertation. Even working on a different section when I can't take the first one any longer doesn't work any more, because I loathe every single goddamn part of it. Who the fuck, I ask myself, gives a shit about the whole lot of it, and truth be told, an estimate of 10 people in the entire world at any point in time seems to be stretching it a bit. Including all the tables of figures and mandatory resume and whatnot, it is currently 196 pages long, and even knowing that the font size, line spacing and margins have clearly been developed by someone with a deep hatred of trees, this seem like an awful lot.
In order to keep my inner perfectionist at bay, I am working on the assumption that the context and conclusion chapters will be the most read, along with the acknowledgements, abstract and table of contents; unfortunately there is a chapter and a subsection that still need to be turned into papers so the more I polish them now and the less I'll have to worry about them later, so that's still quite a lot to go through yet another time.
The fact that I am a horrible, horrible science writer does not help. I used to be quite good at it in French (in fact, last time I read my master's thesis, I could barely believe I was the one who produced such a clear, intelligent, well-written, and pleasant to read document), but in English, despite years and years of training, I still suck at it. This does not help a single bit.
Truly, I feel like I don't want to hear about this research. Eve. Again. I barely even care about publishing it; I want to be done with it. Fortunately I went through a similar period in 2009; when I started my summer internship I was worried I would never want to go back to my PhD, and was actually psyched three months later to get working on it again... so at least I know there is a good chance I will care later about doing things right now.
It doesn't help, though, that I am surrounded by people harboring similar feelings, either having recently finished their own doctorates and barely remembering what they were about, or at the stage where I was myself a little over a year ago. "I am so over this," said a friend who is hoping to graduate this winter, adding "well I guess I'm preaching to the choir" when he saw the black look of murder in my eye.
Seriously? Still three weeks of that shit? I'm not sure I can take it. (Well, not without excessive swearing and cussing and yelling at people, tears, and unhealthy amounts of junk food.) GAH!
This is going to be the best break ever
Well, that naturally follows suit from the mood I have liberally expended upon in the previous paragraphs, but I have scheduled 3 weeks of epic tourism (and polar bears extermination by means of excessive plane taking) starting mid-September.
I will start by spending a few days on my own in Portland, before flying to Boston where I'll meet the mama. We will then grace Washington D. C. and Chicago with our presence before flying to Salt Lake City, where we'll rent a car that will allow us to pay a visit to Arches National Park, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon and a few lesser known curiosities on the way before taking us to Phoenix, from which we'll fly back to sunny Southern California for a last round of goodbyes, as well as shipping my too many boxes off to the motherland and getting reunited with a few extra pieces of luggage that will come on the plane with us.
I am obviously ambivalent about leaving. I am very excited about what is next, but I have gotten used to leaving in the US and going about my daily life in English. And even though they have already started to scatter all over the country I am going to miss the people so very badly. Not that there aren't quite a few people I've been badly missing for the past five years and that I am not excited to get closer to them. If that isn't the biggest drawback of expatriation, I don't know what is...
