Thesis is finished and bound. In terms of pretty much everything else, I'm screwed. At least Latin is over and Sociology is not a big deal. The thought of taking an incomplete has occurred to me. But. Well, we'll see how the next 24 hours go.

Edit: And, as soon as I go bind a copy of my thesis, my advisor says, wait, you need to add to this. Fucking awesome.

I've been poring over Tolkien's letters, searching for a particular quotation. I haven't yet found it, but I did stumble across this:

"As 'research students' always discover, however long they are allowed, and careful their work and notes, there is always a rush at the end, when the last date suddenly approaches on which their thesis must be presented."

It's rather apropos, even if it not relevant to my thesis.

So last Friday I went to talk to my thesis advisor, because I did not have a thesis in hand. And he said he wouldn't have time to even look at my thesis until May 1st. Which is, fortunately, four days before I have to give the Honors program a bound copy. So that's the new date for having a completed draft.

And in other thesis news, I presented it at the MSSA colloquium today. Meaning, I stood up and talked for about 15 minutes about my thesis. With minimal notes. There was only one spot where I got a little stuck, but got going again pretty quickly. Dr. Gallagher really liked it. And people had questions! Yay! hannah_phi brought philosophy people along. And my cousin, who, it turns out, is in Dr. O's other class, turned up.

Now I know that my thesis is all up there in my brain; I just need to sit down and put it on paper.

So, it was a pretty awesome day. At least, until the Scribendi wrap-up discussion went on way too long and I went from "bored" clear through "cranky" and finally coming to rest at "pissy."

The day I plan to really buckle down and write is the day my niece and nephew come to stay over night. I will not be spending much time at the house until they're in bed. I'm at the library now, but that's an option only until 6:00. I'm thinking Flying Star or something after dinner. Bah.

If I say it enough, maybe it will happen:

I will have a draft by Monday. I will have a draft by Monday. I will have a draft by Monday. I will have a draft by Monday. I will have a draft by Monday. I will have a draft by Monday. I will have a draft by Monday. I will have a draft by Monday...

My nephew's birthday party is today. I've known about this since last night. Because I got home early enough that my parents were still awake and told me about it. Otherwise, they probably would have told me a couple of hours ago, the message delivered via my mom coming in with unwrapped presents for me to give him. And had I gotten up as early as I wanted to, such a message would have interrupted my thesis work, which would have totally destroyed my concentration. Good thing it didn't work out that way.

But there are still unwrapped presents to deal with, and I really don't want to search through a bunch of Christmas gift bags looking for the one birthday one in the bunch.

All I want to do is sit down and work on my damned thesis without being interrupted for stupid questions that are the very opposite of urgent. Is that so much to ask?

Ah, the semester is over, and yet, the last few days have been hell, waiting for my grade on this semester's thesis work.

Er... and what work would that be, exactly? Because, I admit, all thesis-related writing for the semester got crammed into the last couple of weeks. The last week of classes was my last opportunity to have my UHP paperwork signed. (The form that tells the University Honors Program people that I'm taking the departmental thesis option.) So, it was time for a title, which I wrote in, oh ten minutes. But what a beautiful title it is. "The Philosopher and the Philologist: Heidegger, Tolkien, and Poetic Language." Bit of a tongue-twister, that first part, but isn't it nice? I was so pleased with it that I can, without hesitation, quote it without having to look it up. Which is more than I can say about the title of my conference paper - it has something about Minas Tirith, Troy, and a "re-imagining" somewhere in there.

And then it was time to write the thesis prospectus. I started out with such good intentions. I was going to start on the weekend before finals so that I could be a good student for once and do the drafting thing that is always expected but I never actually do. And I was going to have it finished by Tuesday of finals week so that I could spend Wednesday studying for and taking the paleography final and afterward drink to my heart's content with a clear conscience. That was a nice little dream.

What really happened was that I did nothing over the weekend after taking the Latin final, did little more on Monday, other than starting the peer evaluations for Scribendi, which I hurriedly (and lamely) finished Tuesday morning, spent the rest of Tuesday writing a funding proposal, and spared nary a thought for thesis before the final from hell. (It may actually have been bitchier than Steve Arch's exam in Intro Bio.) Once I got home, quite late, I tried to concentrate on thesis work, but about all I was capable of at that point was alphabetizing and otherwise getting my preliminary bibliography in order.

So, after four hours of light sleep and paleographical nightmares, I got up at six in the morning. It's been a very, very long time since I've woken up at such an hour. So I was quite surprised to find that it was STILL DARK out. But no time to dwell on that, as I had six hours to write the prospectus, get to campus, and print out/turn the thing in. And all this with the sketchiest of notions of how to go about writing such a thing and aiming for the low end of the specified 750-1500 word length. I made it with time to spare (even with time to turn in the UHP form with a copy of the prospectus and the Career Services funding application). But oh, the nagging doubts after turning it in. How would my three pages look next to the 5-8 page final papers all the non-auditors in the Heidegger class had written? Does my focus go too wide? And how good was it, really? It was one of the few papers I didn't despair to turn in for fear that it would be justly judged to be absolute crap. But perhaps that's not a good sign, given how often those papers I despair over turn out to be better than my jaundiced eye had judged. And of course, this would be the last grade to post.

But finally, at long last, it posted today. And I got an A, bitches.