I'm really not sure whether to laugh or cry.

[truepenny]

kate_nepveu pointed me to this blog entry about academic hazing rituals thesis defenses, which contains a quote from an ESPN article that is too perfect to be believed:

     All your insecurity demons come out of the closet when you write a dissertation. Every sentence, every phrase, is a chance to become more convinced of your inadequacy. Somehow -- hypnosis, therapy, fear of disappointing your parents, a stout glass of wine at noon and another one at 5 o'clock every day -- you get it done. But that's all it is: done. It's not good, and it's not worth reading and it's nowhere near the project you hoped you'd have when you started. You can barely stand to look at it.
     That's what makes the last days before the defense so painful: You're sitting around waiting for the committee to ask you what the hell you thought you were doing when you tried to put this flimsy, illogical piece of sham scholarship over on them.

That's it. On the nail.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

OH yeah...at least my Master's thesis only took a semester, so the agony was shortened.

[rushes off to write some more angst to distract you]

[pameladean]

This can happen with novels about to be published, too. There is no committee that can torment one face-to-face and has the right to, but it's possible to lie awake at night utterly persuaded that the reviews will all be bad and that one will be the subject of one of those nasty perpetually recycled rants about how editors can't edit these days, the slush pile can't be better than this crap, how could this get published when gems lie about rejected, and who was the author sleeping with anyway.

So just think, when you publish a novel you will know that what your unconscious mind is yattering about is nonsense, because you will have been through it all and at that distance know that your dissertation was brilliant.

In the meantime, though, have a large dollop of something comforting.

Pamela

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

I'm trying to develop the habit of never, ever rereading something once I've sold it, except for correcting galleys and so forth. Because the last time I did, it was a story I published in 1997 and then reread in 2001, and it was so awful I cried and couldn't write for a week.

[pameladean]

If you read it again in 2005, you will probably think coolly that it is not so bad for the state of development you were at, and will undoubtedly have six nice letters about it from people who appreciate it; letters that originally made you cringe and fling them into a corner, but that seem perfectly sane when rediscovered while looking for the telephone bill. That's my experience, anyway. Perspective is all.

Pamela

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that can actually happen.

[flummoxicated.livejournal.com]

Ack! I can't believe I'm still planning on going to grad school!
(listens to office noise and craziness)
On the other hand, there are worse alternatives.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

You know, I was planning on pointing you at that, and the other recent one there about imposter syndrome which I've not just now got time to go through the archives looking for.

My sympathies. It's utterly pointless saying I remember this feeling and I did OK eventually, isn't it ?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

No, testimony is helpful, even if it does start to look like an AA meeting or a tent revival in here.

Reminders that people have lived through this are good.

[kate_nepveu]

Imposter syndrome post: here.

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

Oh, how true.

~whimpers~ And I don't even have to stand a viva...

[voske.livejournal.com]

Hell, yes. Writing can be so agonizing.

And a Hello there to you! I like your journal, so I added it to my list.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Is my experience of knowing the viva was going to be more or less a formality unique? (I knew this because one of the examiners* asked me during the previous week whether I would be free for lunch afterwards, so they could take me out to lunch and celebrate.) If so, I was much luckier than I thought!
*The late, and much lamented, Roy Porter.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, for me at least, there's a difference between everyone else assuming the oral will go like a breeze and me, personally, on the inside of my head, knowing I'll actually pass. Especially since my committee haven't seen my dissertation yet.

But I am widely recognized to be more than slightly neurotic.