Is that a knot in your stomach, or are you just really really stressed out?
November 19, 2004
So about a month ago I said that finishing and passing my Arabic literature comprehensive was the hardest phase for me of the whole finishing-my-masters experience. SO not true. The thing is, at the time I figured that I had a month to write two 30-page papers (in lieu of one long thesis), and I had already started one of them, so I was golden. I also believed that my Israeli literature comprehensive would be considerably less...stressful than the Arabic one.
Oh, how my world crumbles.
I am growing old. I can no longer pull off miracles like the one week in May of 2002 where I not only chose the topic for, researched AND wrote my senior capstone paper (read: just a little shorter than a senior thesis) in 5 days (FIVE DAYS!!), but it also turned out damn good if I do say so myself. I got an A, and later when my mother read it (it was about Egypt's historical role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) she cried.
It's been a month and even though most days I�ve come home from work and tried to work on the papers I�ve made very little headway. For one of the papers I am more well-researched and organized than I have ever been for a paper. I mean, I even made note cards, something I haven�t done since high school when it was required for term papers. The problem is, I just can�t seem to write. Every time I sit in front of my computer I start to panic. I lose all ability to think and all confidence in my writing and comprehension skills. I can�t even begin to describe the complex that Gerard Genette has given me. I don�t understand about levels and distance in narrative voice, though sometimes I get the sneaking suspicion that I actually do. What I mean is, some of the theory I�m reading seems so blatantly obvious to me, and so of course I assume that I must not understand what is being said.
And this leads to my fear of trying to incorporate this theory in what I�m writing lest my advisor who has been my professor for 6 years and who once-upon-a-freshman-year-seminar thought I was brilliant will realize what a simplistic imbecile I really am.
Anyway, I�ve taken a week off work so that I can really sit at home and concentrate, because I guess coming home at 7-ish and trying to write is also not the best way to go about things.
So here is what I have to get done in the next 8 days:
-- Finish up one paper
-- Start and finish another
-- Sit for my Israeli literature comprehensive from Nov. 25th-28th
And when I am finally done with this self-imposed, self-inflicted hell week, I will hopefully be done done done with This Damn Masters. Ok, maybe it will go into the first week of December, but after that I am free! (I hope) (LadyDi reminded me the other week that the professor administering the Israeli lit comp is very tough when it comes to correcting exams and papers. Aiyee!)
And when I am hopefully, please God please done with that I plan to:
-- Get a damn haircut
-- Get my busy eyebrows done
-- Stop biting my nails to the quick
-- Sign up for German classes at the Goethe Center
-- Find someone to start teaching me the oud
-- Finish reading Ron Suskind�s The Price of Loyalty, the concise history of German Philosophy that I started nearly a year ago, and all the other books that I picked up and then guiltily put down because they were not related to TDM
-- Start going to the gym again, or with this nicer, cooler weather start running on the track
-- See all my relatives and friends that I�ve been neglecting, especially recently
-- Go to the doctor to figure out why my left arm is always tingly and itchy lately
-- Watch a lot of fucking television and movies
-- Dedicate myself more to my job and to improving my knowledge of current affairs
-- Be �happy�