Most people who have written a dissertation are kind, understanding and share funny stories...and often inspiring stories about how they managed to get through it. Others seem to forget the anxiety they went through...though I am not sure how that happened. I am not sure I will ever forget this.
The thing is...it shouldn't be such a big thing. It is a very long research paper. Only - it isn't! It is a right of passage, a final test of scholarship, a launch into the real world of academia. I know it isn't a test of who I am or who I will be, and yet when those words stand alone on a page, it feels as if somehow I am baring part of my soul. Or at least the part my committee allows to be seen!
It takes every spare minute I have. It consumes my thoughts. It nudges me awake at 3AM and pushes me beyond where I thought I could go. It is only halfway done and I am relieved and amazed that I am at this point. And I wonder where it will take me from here.
So maybe the thing is...I have learned more about myself from the dissertation than the world will learn from my "scholarship"....we shall see.
