Well, I am very much in academia, and so I need to know the rules and play by them (as SW put it: be in the game but not of it.)
Well, lo and behold, my theory is pretty "big" (I don't have the mind for a more apt word, after writing for over 12 hours), so my literature review has taken over 3 weeks to do. This is not literature that is completely new to me as I was already fairly familiar with the field. But when you have a theory to "retrofit," the literature you read take on a new lens. You start to look for and see things you did not see before. And of course, with each new search, another piece of literature pops up.
It's exciting. But it's also exhausting.
This dissertation has got to be done, and soon! The literature background section has taken me three days to write (after 3 weeks of reading and re-reading), and I am still not done. Sure, the chapter is brilliant--it really is, IMHO--but I'm fed up with the work. As they say in Caprica, this is taking too fracking long.
On Resurrection Sunday, I will wake up and not go to church. Instead, I will hit my computer with my fingers to finish up chapter 2. And when chapter 2 is done, I will re-read it together with chapter 3, 4, and 5, and edit. After that, Monday will come, and I will begin writing my conclusion and discussion chapter, 6. It should be a significantly easier chapter to write. Hopefully, I can finish it in one day. And finally, after that is done, I will pull it all together by writing chapter 1.
The kids' Easter break will be over next weekend. I owe them big time--about 7 years of absence. I will send off the entire draft of the dissertation to my adviser by Thursday, and then, take a long weekend off to some beach hotel and just relax for the entire weekend.
Now, that would be a holyday [sic]--spending real connecting time with family.
2 comments:
First of all, I'm THRILLED that the end is in sight for you.
But can I add that I'm also SO jealous of you?
I thought that my last chapter would be a breeze to write, but the last time I looked at this material was two months ago, so I'm spending too much time re-reading stuff that I've forgotten.
Perhaps I'll be done at the end of April?
*sigh*
With all the details of references, formating, editing; and then committee reading, potential pre-defense revisions, etc., I expect that it will only be at the end of April that I can set a defense date. Do you have to be present to defend?
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