There Is A Train And I Am On It

Today, after months, literally months, of slavish procrastination and determined avoidance, I finally sat down and began to write my thesis.

"What?" you all ask. "Hasn't she been complaining about all the work that she's been doing on her thesis for the last four months? And she's only now just starting it???"

I can understand and appreciate your confusion. Let me explain: for the last three and a half months I've been working on the project that I'm writing my thesis about and that work has included not only suffering the abuse of malcontented teenagers twice a week, but also writing hundreds of pages of logs about it that no one will ever, ever read. But my self-imposed deadline of having half the actual research paper written by the time I finish the project is only a week away, so I was forced today to cancel some theatre-going plans and get down to work.

Good News: I have a full thirty pages to show for my hard day's work!!!

Less-Impressive Reality: about 23 pages of it was almost completely cut and pasted from other papers, proposals, etc. that I had already written.

Somewhat Impressive Reality: even though I cut and pasted a bunch, I was doing some good editing as I did so, and the other 7 pages are mostly outlines, so once I flesh them out I'll have my first half of the paper checking in at a solid 40 pages.

It feels surprisingly good to actually be productive, and I have high hopes of meeting my goal by next week.

In the meantime, I'm heading outside to reward my hard work by sitting in the garden for awhile, possibly planting some tomatoes, and then having a glass of wine to brace myself for my third-to-last session with the kids tomorrow.