Wednesday, February 23, 2005

push the moment to its crisis

By now, regular readers of this blog know to expect that a day or two of progress and elation is always followed by a day or two of terror and disorganization. So it is today. (sighs) Appologies for another day of moping; you're welcome to ignore me today.

My advisor is really pushing me on this improved version of Chapter One - I've had three unsolicited e-mails from him in the last twenty-four hours, all pushing for tightening and clarifying of prose and concept.

I know that this is to my benefit. Like Michelle's work with her trainer at the gym, I need someone to kick me. The deadline is looming, and he wants me to beat it. (Heck, so do I.)

The presentation worries me not a bit. Even if I get hammered with a series of vindictive or cruel questions (no one is crueler to an academic than another academic who doesn't know what they're talking about but thinks that they do) - it's the writing. I've been working from inside my topic for so long that it's difficult to remember that most people know next to nothing about it at all.

Words Written: zero
Lessons Graded: zero
Books on Floor: fourteen

4 comments:

Joe said...

Two thoughts:

(a) You'll be fine. Everybody with a kind, insightful, dashing librarian on their side will be OK. It's in our charter.

(b) One of the things I adore about you is that you are fully capable of having made an overeducated double entendre with the title of this post, and yet I have no earthly way to know if you meant to, or to make you fess up one way or the other.

lemming said...

Ta. You forgot wise and patient.

Did I make an O.E.D.E? It's a line from a poem I rather like...

Joe said...

See, I'm acquainted with the theory that Eliot was making an OEDE here. And your plausible deniability remains unbesmirched. Which was my point all along.

Or maybe English majors just have dirty minds while History folk are innocent and pure of heart. I'm not saying nothing.

lemming said...

(lemming coughs) You do know that I double majored...