Tuesday, July 6, 2010

On nine things I would rather do than write my thesis

To say that the work on my thesis has not been flowing easy these last few weeks months would be like saying that climbing Mount Everest is “a bit of a hike”. It’s like every fibre of my body is working against me whenever I try to make any sort of progress. If I try to open the document entitled “Chapter Five (Or How I Lost The Will To Live)”, my toes rebel and pull out the plug to the computer. If I open any of my reference books, my eyes automatically shut, making it very hard to read anything at all. If I put my fingers to the keyboard, my elbows start twisting uncontrollably, causing perfectly sensible sentences such as “The Palestinian refugee problem remained a difficult challenge for the US authorities” to turn into nonsense: “The Oskedumuqn fureeg odrnep enraimed s fiddiclut xakkenge fro the IS arothotititties.”

On the rare occasions that my body does not rebel against me, my mind does. I stare at the screen for hours, looking pensive and concentrated, I am sure, but in reality I am shouting at the top of my lungs (but you know, inside me) “I DON’T WANNA, I DON’T WANNA!”. I really, really don’t. I want to go outside in the (for once) lovely weather. I want to read a good, fiction book. I want to procrastibake.

Basically, I want to do anything but write my thesis. So I came up with the following list:


The ten things I would least like to do right now (10 being the best of the worst):

10) Pull my nails out one by one.

9) Shave my head by use of the teeth of a (live) great white shark.

8) Sky dive into a (live) volcano.

7) Eat Roquefort cheese.

6) Eat Roquefort cheese with a topping of salmonella.

5) Eat Roquefort cheese with a topping of salmonella while reading the Twilight books.

4) Stick needles into my eyeballs.

3) Practice self-dismemberment.

2) Touch a (living or dead) snake.

1) Write my thesis.

So there you have it. I really don't want to write that thesis. But I kinda have to. I have given myself until I leave for work this afternoon to finish the crappiest draft in history (in fact, it is so crappy that there will be written Master's theses about it in the future). In the meantime I have banned myself from the blogosphere. I will pull the internet chord if I have to! If you see me around at all today, PLEASE KICK ME OUT! (When I return from work tonight, though, hopefully a free woman, I will have no kicking, please...)

In the meantime, though, why don't you check out another fabultastic post at Burrowers, Books & Balderdash?

17 comments:

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

Interesting list, enjoyed the read.

Yvonne,

Nicole said...

...I'm getting the idea you don't want to write your thesis ;p

Be good and do it!! Once done you can do cartwheels then whatever the heck you like - you can do it :)

Unknown said...

LOL. I loved your list. Even though, it was your least favorite things to do. I can't stand Roquefort cheese either.

ViolaNut said...

"arothotititties", huh? *snort* That might need to be enshrined... ;-)

RosieC said...

A very wise PhD student once told me, "The best paper/chapter/whatever is one that is turned in. It doesn't matter how crappy it is. It's turned in." Besides, we're our own harshest critics. What may be crap to you... well, it might not be gold to your committee, but it might not be the biohazard that you think it is.

Oh, and if you REALLY want to read fiction, beggers can't be choosers, and I think #5 is looking pretty good right now :)

Good luck. And you'd better not respond to this!

M.J. Nicholls said...

Are you in the blogosphere now? Can you read this? GET BACK TO WORK!!!

LTM said...

ugh! The master's thesis. I feel your pain. I hunkered down and finally pounded mine out during a non-hurricane hurricane day in Baton Rouge. (They're always shutting BR down for hurricanes, when hurricanes RARELY hit there.)

Best of luck w/it! :o)

Jen said...

I often wonder why when we are feeling tortured, we would much rather torture ourselves even more than do the first thing that is torturing us...
Maybe it's time to take a walk. That always clears my head and gives me new ideas of writing sentences.
Good luck!

Hart Johnson said...

5) Eat Roquefort cheese with a topping of salmonella while reading the Twilight books. *dies* I happen to like roquefort, but this is beautiful! And I am with Leanne on inclusion of that fabulous new word hence forth to be the calling of all bossy people.

Ann said...

LOL and LOL again!!! But the mother in me says...Write that thesis!

Jemi Fraser said...

It's gotta be bad if you'd rather do those things! Good luck! I'll send you industrious thoughts :)

Tina said...

Wow, that was a great list. I now truly understand how much you don't want to write it...and I agree that some of those alternatives are quite hideous. Most importantly the Twilight drivel, er books. Thanks for following at Life is Good!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Number five sounds like the worst to me!

Cruella Collett said...

Yvonne - thanks (and sorry about the Blogger issues that made the comments disappear earlier. Looks like it's fixed now) :)

Nicole - cartwheels done! Alright, maybe not, but I certainly feel light enough to do them right now ;)

Mr - it is terrible, isn't it? I'm not a cheese person...

Jan - good luck! You can kick those tax butts, girl!

Leanne - you should give credit to my elbows...

RosieC - (uhm - am I allowed to respond now?) Oh it was crap alright. It had large chunks of "this will be written as soon as I figure it out" in it. But you are right - it is turned in. First draft, that is. I will have to figure out those things before turning in the final edition...

MJ - nahaa, I wasn't! Alright, I was for a little bit, but that doesn't count as I pretended not to be...
(See, this is why I am writing papers. I am so very logical!)

LTM - Baton Rouge, huh? Maybe that's where I have to go...

Jennee - oh, why weren't you around on Saturday, when I could have used that advice? ;) Alright, I probably could have used it today too, but I actually managed to get some work done. Yay me!

Tami - *snort* Why am I not surprised you are fond of words mocking arototti.. ahem, authorities ;)

Ann - tee hee, I did (well, parts of it anyway. There is still miles to go. But I am getting there)

Jemi - so THAT'S why it worked! Thanks! :)

Tina - I see we share a taste in torture...

Alex - and you share it too!

Man - I hope that was everyone. PLEASE NOTE that if you left a comment today and it isn't showing up, it is NOT because I deleted it (never would, unless it's spam), but it might be because Blogger was being silly... I hope this problem is now resolved so we can resume the scheduled silliness...

Unknown said...

Ha ha ha, these are so funny. They're great!

CD

Anonymous said...

Hilarious post, Cruella!

I know what you're going through with the homework and all, since I'm still a student myself. It sucks, but you got to do what you got to do, right?

I wish you luck on completing your history thesis.

Write on and fight on!

Cruella Collett said...

Clarissa - thanks ;)

Vatche - thank you! Good luck yourself! :)

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