I had lunch with my thesis advisor and several of her advisees today. I specifically sat across from her so I could riddle myself with guilt since I have not been working on my thesis at all.
I never used to be a procrastinator. This is really the only thing I've ever procrastinated on. Of course I have been a little busy. Divorce, new apartment, dating frenzy, new boyfriend, new job, another new apartment, four weddings and a funeral, a full time job that involves writing so who wants to go home and write more?, and a social life of sorts. Granted, if I spent as much time working on my thesis as I do blogging I'd be done by now.
So today at lunch I told my thesis advisor that she needs to lay the guilt on as thickly as possible. If she ever thinks of me she needs to drop me a line and ask, "How's the thesis going?" I generally don't need pushing on projects. I've always been that annoying person who is done term papers days in advance. In fact, unless you are the person to whom I am responsible, pushing me to do something usually has the opposite affect. You push me and I'll dig my heals in further. I have a very childish response to anyone but my professor mentioning that I should be working on it. I literally have an internal hissy fit and I totally bristle - "Who are you to tell me to work on it?! Screw you. I'm going to go watch TV." Like right now, just the thought of someone asking me how they can help me move forward on the project makes me want to punch someone. Moral of the story: I'd advise you not to advise me on my thesis.
It has, however, come to the time when I need to buckle down and work on this thing. I have to have a pretty good draft by March if I want to graduate. And if I don't want to be freaking out in March it should be as close to a final draft as possible at that time. It's not even going to be that hard once I get my act together. And getting my act together simply means sitting my ass down for longer than 10 minutes and going for it. As soon as I'm back from vacation, that's it - full steam ahead. Seriously. Except for the holidays, I have nothing on my plate. And FG starts working on the weekends consistently soon so I'll have no excuse.
My thesis advisor did give me a task - when I get back I have to put together an annotated table of contents. This is good. I needed a first step to the next phase of my project.
FYI: For those of you new to Big Girl Underoos and my life, I am getting a Masters and my thesis is an oral history of the town I grew up in. It was a mill town and it's been slowly dieing the death of so many mill towns. I have completed the interviews. I have transcribed the interviews. I have edited half of the interviews so they make more sense and all the things that a person talked about on a subject are in one place. All I have to do now is finish editing and put everything together into a story that makes sense. So you see, in the grand scheme of slackers, I haven't really been doing too bad. But it has been over a year since I started so...
Wish me luck (but don't tell me I should do it. I'll just rebel. Pathetic.)
I never used to be a procrastinator. This is really the only thing I've ever procrastinated on. Of course I have been a little busy. Divorce, new apartment, dating frenzy, new boyfriend, new job, another new apartment, four weddings and a funeral, a full time job that involves writing so who wants to go home and write more?, and a social life of sorts. Granted, if I spent as much time working on my thesis as I do blogging I'd be done by now.
So today at lunch I told my thesis advisor that she needs to lay the guilt on as thickly as possible. If she ever thinks of me she needs to drop me a line and ask, "How's the thesis going?" I generally don't need pushing on projects. I've always been that annoying person who is done term papers days in advance. In fact, unless you are the person to whom I am responsible, pushing me to do something usually has the opposite affect. You push me and I'll dig my heals in further. I have a very childish response to anyone but my professor mentioning that I should be working on it. I literally have an internal hissy fit and I totally bristle - "Who are you to tell me to work on it?! Screw you. I'm going to go watch TV." Like right now, just the thought of someone asking me how they can help me move forward on the project makes me want to punch someone. Moral of the story: I'd advise you not to advise me on my thesis.
It has, however, come to the time when I need to buckle down and work on this thing. I have to have a pretty good draft by March if I want to graduate. And if I don't want to be freaking out in March it should be as close to a final draft as possible at that time. It's not even going to be that hard once I get my act together. And getting my act together simply means sitting my ass down for longer than 10 minutes and going for it. As soon as I'm back from vacation, that's it - full steam ahead. Seriously. Except for the holidays, I have nothing on my plate. And FG starts working on the weekends consistently soon so I'll have no excuse.
My thesis advisor did give me a task - when I get back I have to put together an annotated table of contents. This is good. I needed a first step to the next phase of my project.
FYI: For those of you new to Big Girl Underoos and my life, I am getting a Masters and my thesis is an oral history of the town I grew up in. It was a mill town and it's been slowly dieing the death of so many mill towns. I have completed the interviews. I have transcribed the interviews. I have edited half of the interviews so they make more sense and all the things that a person talked about on a subject are in one place. All I have to do now is finish editing and put everything together into a story that makes sense. So you see, in the grand scheme of slackers, I haven't really been doing too bad. But it has been over a year since I started so...
Wish me luck (but don't tell me I should do it. I'll just rebel. Pathetic.)
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