I did it!

I submitted (well, re-submitted, technically) my dissertation by emailing it to my committee on May 30. It feels really weird now to be done with it. Of course, I have the next few weeks to prepare, which will take some doing. Then, I defend at 10 a.m. on June 23.

If anyone still reads this thing, I'll keep you posted.

Remember, remember

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Disbelief

So, I go to group therapy. In the last session, one of the members described an unfortunate experience in which someone in a church group (I'll call him the Christian) asked her on the spot to explain why someone would want to kill herself, given God's grace.

(The purpose of the church meeting was to figure out whether killing oneself is a mortal sin. The members of the church group decided that it was not. How kind of them.)

Having heard this anecdote, I was angry on the therapy-group member's behalf because of the circumstances in which she was asked to explain. But maybe, I thought, the question of the offending Christian was a good one. If you believe in God, why would you want to kill yourself? Unlike the Christian who asked what it meant to want to kill oneself, I wonder about the belief side of the question. If you have wanted to kill yourself (as my fellow therapy-group member has wanted to do in the past) or even if you have been severely depressed, how can you believe in God?

These two questions are different only in the viewpoint of the questioner. The Christian didn't understand suicidal ideation. I don't understand belief. Or, rather, I think I get it but don't respect it. This puts me in a predicament because bringing it up in group might reactivate her feelings of shame, which is not my intention. But I really am curious. But one of the group members is a paster, and I don't want a lecture. But I'd like to know how it is possible to believe in the grace of God and still want to die.

My experience of trying to commit suicide clarified my position on belief. Before, I was an agnostic. Afterwards, I became an atheist. I realized that I believe in the everlasting darkness of death, with no concern for any afterlife or judgement. So the question remains: how can someone maintain two such contradictory thoughts, overwhelming despair and true belief? I mean, I know that people believe in contradictory things all the time. So, is it a question worth exploring?

No defense

So the day before my defense was scheduled, my advisor called me to say that I wouldn't be able to defend, even though he's been reading my work the whole time. He suggested that the committee meet as a group anyway, which we did. It was pretty awful to have 4 people tell me what's bad about my work for 2 hours.

So now I have 4 more months and another 150 pages in which to get this thing into the shape they want it in. I'm so tired of writing, but I'm determined to see this through. I just don't know how I'm going to do it.

The situations this puts me in are terrible. Now I have to find a job (fast) that will give me benefits so that I can continue to take my meds. As you may know, Sam has been laid off, so I can't go on his insurance anymore.

Plus, now I don't have that lectureship for the fall that I was planning on. No teaching for me for a while. And I love teaching. Wish me luck in writing and job-finding.

I submitted

I submitted on Friday. It's out of my hands now, and I have to figure out how to prepare for the defense, which is in, like, 2 weeks. But no more writing, no more revising, no more worrying about when my submission was going to be.

It's in and now it's on.

Revision stage and some whining

I mean, massive revision stage. I have less than a month to rewrite several parts of my dissertation. My advisor said that at this point the diss is undefensible, which is pretty scary news, and we're going into triage mode. I mean, I've been working on my introduction revision for the past week, and that's only a start. I haven't even begun the conclusion.

so my timeline for the next three months is:

May: massive revisions

June: waiting with baited breath until my June 23rd defense

July: more revisions with a deadline of July 20 to get everything in to the graduate school. Provided that I pass the defense.

I really though that Paul wouldn't let me schedule a defense date if he didn't think I could pass, but I guess I was wrong.

finished another rough draft

So I've finished another rough draft. I'm up to 3 chapters now, with two revisions yet to do on 2 of them. But I finished another rough draft, so that's something.

Anniversary

From W.S. Merwin:

On the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveller

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what

Sam's trip to Boise

Sam's trip to Boise has been way too long. First of all, I love him and miss him.

But second, my computer died on Thursday. Time sink eliminated. So I read a thick novel I bought several months ago. 950 pages took me until last night, so I'm glad that my computer was finished today. For almost $750, they replaced the logic board. I was considering simply buying a new computer altogether, for an extra $350, but I'd have to buy a lot of proprietary software that would have been lost in the shuffle from the old computer to the new. And the new ones don't come in black. (That's the definition of superficial, so let's not spend too much time thinking that one over.) I'm not sure how I feel about my decision. But it's done, and my security blanket is up and running again.

Now I have to grade papers and clean up the house.

update on the diss

Here's the deal. I'm writing my chapters out of order, purposely. Chapter 2 needs some revision work, but apparently, as Paul told me on Friday, Chapter 1 just needs a quick spin around the block to get some kinks worked out. Now I'm drafting Chapter 3. Well, not right now. It's due at the end of January, but I'm pretty sure I can bang it out by the end of this month.

He also thinks that this thing could be 150–200 pages (rather than the 250–300 pages he mentioned in the past), and he suggested that I address only works in the silent period. So we're looking at about a total of 6 chapters with an afterword to sum everything up. The goal now is for me to defend (i.e., to answer lots of hard questions during a 2-hour period, which I dread) in July and graduate in August. These are goals I can meet.