I woke up this morning with the quiet certainty that it was time to begin writing chapter 6—the summary chapter of my dissertation.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not done with chapters 4 or 5—but Enough has gone by that it’s time to write the conclusion and make sure that the last bits of 4 and 5 line up with it.
I’ve started drafting the three or four paragraph block that sits at the heart of 6, and it’s an odd experience. These few paragraphs are the great apologia for how I’ve spent the last eight years of my life (not counting the whole “regular” life complete with marriage, jobs, kids, etc…). I find this great reckoning simultaneously exhilarating—and pathetic.
More as it evolves…
In other news, I celebrated February as Foot Trauma Month this year by—while washing the dishes—managing to drop a knife off the kitchen counter and allowing it to sink halfway through my right foot. Thankfully, it landed right between two toe tendons and though it bled a lot initially seems to only be a minor flesh-wound.
Glad to hear the diss is progressing nicely — I’ll keep you in my prayers! As for the foot — ouch!
Sounds a lot like the time between seminary and grad school when I put a pitch fork through my boot, bouncing the middle tine off the bone, going all the way through the skin at the side of the foot next to the big toe, and out the bottom of the boot. I even got to pull it back out by myself. Not a whole lot of blood, but I did have most of the medical community in my small Nebraska town passing this info around, so it eventually got back to my Mom, an RN on duty at the hospital that day, from the clinic where I went for the tetanus shot.
When I finished the first draft of my dissertation I celebrated by going to Mcdonald’s for a fish filet. Something tells me you’ve got more class.
My guess is that the dissertation might be done now if you had worn a suit of armor and lived in a hermit’s cave! I mean, isn’t that what dissertation committees really expect?
Oh come on, Fr–that’s not really what they expect…. because you neglected to include the flights of ravens that bring you food and drink!
Actually, I was Greatly Warned when, after getting my proposal passed, I told my committee that I’d be moving to New York and getting a full-time job so M could study at General. I was assured that upon leaving the university property I would be constitutionally incapable of ever finishing… (My director had faith in me, though.)
Ouch, David! That sounds like the time when I sliced open my right hand on a falling stack of aluminum greenhouse slats…
Glad to hear the dissertation is going so well!
Sounds like you managed to avoid anything major on the foot. Was it the same foot that the spider got you in?
[A Spanish soccer goaltender managed to miss a World Cup by dropping a bottle of cologne on his foot. It shattered and cut some tendons. Glad you didn’t do anything like that.]
Yep—same foot.
I swear it’s time to buy another pair of steel-toed boots…