Thesis status: Mostly dead

Some of you know or may have heard about that little life event I have coming up called a wedding.

While it will not be the death of me it has relegated my thesis to the realm of "Mostly dead"

Talking to other grad students I have learned that major life events seem to send a thesis into stasis. Take for example, pregnancy. While this only affects about one half of grad students it is still a common problem. A women who thinks she has three months left to go on her thesis, has already defended and is really just tweaking the bibliography decides to get pregnant.

All of a sudden a thesis that should take three months to finish, now looks like it will not be done until the little one in her tummy is starting grad school herself. Mommy classes, making a nursery, nervous calls from soon to be grandparents, doctors visits, all of which should somehow take maybe 4-5 hours a week begin to take 16 hours a day.

Or say you cross the threshold of getting an academic job, sure it is just a part time position, but for some reason you are exhausted after your three hours of class, your two office hours and ten hours of marking, you aren't going to want to finish that thesis. The light at the end of your tunnel slowly begins to fade as you enter the "I need to make money, therefore I will work, which will help me pay the tuition so I can take one more term to do my thesis" state of perpetual quasi-death.

Returning to my original example, say my wedding finishes I return from my honeymoon. It ain't over and no chocolate covered pill is going to revive this undead tome. After the wedding you have thank you cards to send, gifts to return, a new place to move into. All of a sudden your working spouse expects you to work during the day, 9-5 like him or her, so you can spend "quality time" together. Impromptu beer nights (aka academic brainstorming sessions) with your friends are replaced by dinner parties with other married couples who ask "how long until your thesis is done again?". Pshaw, they never mentioned that in the pre-nup. I do my best work at 4:00 am and I study over beer how was that not obvious before marriage.

Well, death is another part of living, I am sure things will even out again soon after all, I do study religion and even my thesis deserves and afterlife (or is that what a post-doc is for?)

*Disclaimer* Any mention of annoying spouses is purely conjecture and in no way reflects my real life spouse as he has never worked 9-5, he's lucky if he gets to work 8-11(pm) **