distopia

[truepenny]

Thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts and well-wishes, and especially to the anonymous poster who gave me a fit of the giggles this morning.

I survived the defense without bursting into tears in the conference room, which we're counting as a win. A lot of revising to do, enough so that I'm not going to be able to finish by December. Spring semester tuition here we come.

Very downhearted at the moment. Don't want to take it out on y'all, so shutting up now.

Comments

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on surviving. Sorry it didn't work out the way you'd hoped.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the report.

Sorry it isn't over yet, but it will be.

[redbird]

You will finish it.

But since you have to pay Spring tuition anyway, give yourself a couple of days off, a nice meal and some fiction-writing.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Wow, two friends and a co-worker going through academic hell today (yours and the GRE). Don't joke about crying in there--it doesn happen, and some people don't even survive quals due to sudden emotional breakdowns. So yeah, GO YOU!

[libskrat]

Some people don't even get to quals owing to sudden emotional breakdowns.

*whistles innocently*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I wasn't joking.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Heh. *HUG*

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I hope things look better after you've had some time to come down.

Best of luck with the revisions.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

I wonder which model works better in practice (for the PhD candidate), the semi-public defense or the absence of one.... Where I am, we don't have a formal defense; there's a post-quals prospectus conference, during which one's committee members itemize their concerns, with varying expectations as to whether one responds on the spot. But afterwards, people tend to get lost amidst the push-and-pull of making each reader agree on the chapter-versions that they'll approve and sign, precisely because there's no centralized meeting / defense. Humiliation extended over months, in other words, rather than all at once.

Sorry to hear that it didn't go as well as it could have, and all best for the revision process.

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about the revising. It is very disheartening--I know what you feel like, as I'm currently waiting for my supervisor to tell me what needs to be done to make my final draft decent! But at least it means that the end is in sight. And well done on surviving the defense.
Now you need hot chocolate, and good books that have nothing to do with the thesis for a while, and lots of good company. It worked for me yesterday...

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

*gnaws on them determindly*

And, this being your journal and all, I really don't mind downhearted posting. Honest.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Wah!! But yeay! for surviving.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Well, even downhearted and contemplating more arduous work than you hoped, you still ROCK UTTERLY, in my opinion.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

You will never, ever have to defend again, and that *is* a win! Congrats!

(My defense was similarly anticlimactic -- I suspect they only passed me because I had a faculty position lined up for the fall. My revisions were so substantial that they took me a whole semester, and oh, how I hated telling people at my new job that I was still finishing my dissertation.)

[weaktwos.livejournal.com]

Well, given the various folks I know who have "Pile it Higher and Deepers", it is more a test of perseverence and politics than true ingenuity (though, ingenuity is not necessarily non-existent!). Furthermore, you cannot spell "rocket science" with perseverence nor politics, nor any combination thereof. Ergo, since perseverence and politics are not rocket science, I contend that though you are drained and crabby, you can achieve this milestone. Q.E.D. Ahem. This is my theory, though not necessarily mine alone.

Anyway, Scarcrest pointed me here, and I want to wish you all the best in your trundle up Mount Sisyphus. Keep a stiff upper lip. Close your eyes and think of England. When life gives you lemons, make a lemon drop cocktail. And then there's old Winny Churchill's famous advice:

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Cheers!

(note: the above-mentioned theory is void if the Doctorate you are pursuing is in fact in the field of rocket science.)

Re: Defense

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

Here's a post with Beppo to cheer you. No great thing worth having comes without some sort of fight. You'll get it, and you'll appreciate it more for having to work so hard to pry it out of their hands.

Drop me an e-mail with your phone number, if you would. I now have nationwide calling, and might give you a buzz some night or weekend.

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

Hard to know what to do with people who don't appreciate a work of genius. However, you survived, and your own personal cheerleading team will ensure you get through the revisions. We know you can do it!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Surviving is good. And revisions are, well, revisions. It's a win, even with conditions, it's not 'go away and resubmit', which does happen. Though, yes, annoying, time-consuming, and not what one needs when one simply wants to see the back of the whole thing. Give yourself a break doing comforting stuff for a bit.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

not what one needs when one simply wants to see the back of the whole thing

Yes. That's it, exactly.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Well done insofar as you don't have to do it again; have a break, do things you enjoy, clear your head, remember how many cheerleaders you have here.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

On second thought, I wish I could send George to you.

If I manage it somehow, please send him to me when you're done. [innocent whistling]