Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Blank Page

Wake up, roll out of bed, eat waffle, shower, start thesis.

Sounds easy right? Not so my friends.

This tome is the summation of my academic experience, it will define me as a scholar for the rest of my life....or until I get a job and decide I never want to step into a museum again because they needed a Buddhist philosopher or something.

I stare at the my MS word blank document waiting for inspiration to come. Oddly enough, flashes of lightening and peals of thunder don't seem to be coming, no light bulbs are lit over my head, except the blinking on on my ceiling I am too lazy to replace. I would think being a religion major would give me a little advantage in the "divine inspiration" department. Perhaps this is retribution for that Jesus joke last week.

Wait...ahh, there is inspiration. The sweet smell of make work projects (I recognize it from my time in cadets). I will create folders, one for each chapter...that way I can organize all the information I have been collecting over the years into the chapters I know I will have to write. This is why I can't write you see, I have all the information, it just isn't organized.

 A good three hours later I have neatly organized folders with titles such as "Power" "Identity" and "conclusions".  My thesis should only take a few months now that I'm organised.

Maybe tomorrow I will cut and paste my old bibliographies to make a reading list...that should kill at least two hours. After all, productivity is productivity....;)

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Beginning a blog

So I just finished my comprehensive exams (quals for those in the US). And I am about to embark on the process of writing a dissertation.

Since I deal with stress by laughing at it, I thought I would record my thoughts as I swim through the academic rapids that is the thesis, and hopefully some other people out there who feel my pain can laugh along

It won't all be funny though, even now, I am starting to feel some of the pain, as questions I got asked during comps called into question the entire premise of my thesis.

So off I go, what do you say to start a (hopefully) two year journey?

Dissertation Ho'!  (Ok, so hopefully that one doesn't morph into a nickname).