finish my masters degree

a while ago, but for some superstitious reason or other, I didn’t. The dissertation was written, the defense passed… so? So I had to have a piece of paper to prove it in my hands. I’m one of those persons who doesn’t believe it’s over till it’s really over. Now I have a piece of paper. It’s still not the pretty one, but it’s something. I just want every little detail to be done, then I’ll be actually calm. But I’ll mark this as done anyway, because it keeps staring at me, and just add comments about paperwork.

there’s only paperwork….

handed in my dissertation. All 201 pages. It’s still not over, though… I have to pass my defense… Then I’ll celebrate.

if there’s a specific name in English for this kind of exam (about my work up til now) about part of what you’ve already written when you are working on your dissertation, but I did mine last Thursday and it seems it all went pretty well.

I handed in my huge report. All 116 pages. That’s what I’ve been working on this month. My advisor is happy, I am happy…
Now I want to review my plan, and go on writing, writing and writing….

I had a meeting with my advisor, and everything went really well. I suspect I in fact have much more done than she expected. That was my most important accomplishment of this month! Grin

if I say so myself.
I edited about 5 pages (which when it’s stuff I wrote, means a very thorough, painstaking, almost paranoid process of rewriting, checking things, adding things etc, etc…) and wrote about another 5, which may not sound like much, but is very good for the kind of thing I’m writing.

...had to get away for a conference, so she asked me to substitute for her. Teaching that class was a nice experience; I wish I didn’t stress so much beforehand.

Turned in some very annoying reports. I really dislike doing them, because they seem such a waste of time! I procrastinated, but it reaaly wasn’t all that terrible to do them – mainly because I had a lot already written (thanks to NOT procrastinating before), and it was mostly a matter of orderly cut and paste/writing something at the beginning.
Fifty pages out of my way.

I reorganized all my material and drafted a rough one-year calendar with big/general goals for each month, so I don’t lose perspective. I tend to get obsessive with an idea, so I need to set specific goals and dealines (for each chapter) in order to keep moving on.