Swimming in Peanut Butter

NP: Pet Shop Boys -- Opportunities (Dance Mix)

Yes, that oft used metaphor is now the title of the post, which means this must be a message about writing the dissertation.

I am so tired of fooling with this thing. I have written roughly 9 pages today. I had hoped to have Chapter 7 put to bed by the end of the evening, but I still have at least 1.5 pages on the aftermath of 1952 and another 2 on the issue of corruption in that same year. There is no way I can get all that tonight. This post is actually an attempt to refocus my thoughts for a final push toward the 50th page of the chapter.

My dissertation director is great. He is taking a job in his native country in May, so I'm under a very specific time crunch. He actually got the job in May 2005, but told the new university way across the Atlantic that he couldn't take it until May 2006 so his Ph.D students would have the option to finish under his supervision. He currently has 9 students in various stages of their careers and, assuming I can press on and wind this thinkg up by March, 4 of us stand to graduate before he leaves. (I am counting myself as one of those even though I will be out in the summer, but he can do my dissertation defense over speakerphone).

This whole process has been good but not as rewarding as I thought. As my page count approaches 425 total, I find that the intesne deadline has stifled any creativity or in depth analysis that I have to think long and hard about. I have given myself a 3 month window between first draft and final submission, so I will go back and add that part in, but right now I feel like a page factory. My argument is there, as is my research base (over 100 footnotes in the 49 pages of Chapter 7 alone), but unless I improve this a great deal it won't be the ground-breaking project I want it to be.

Well, enough of that. GNR just came on the random Mp3 player, so that must be my cue to "Get in the Ring" and keep writing.