when 2 out of 4 does not mean halfway

Being finished two out of four chapters does not mean that I am half finished the dissertation. The to-do list still includes:

• chapter three
• chapter four
• introduction
• conclusion
• massive revisions

And there is the distinct possibility that chapters three and four will have longer word counts than the first two chapters (esp. four, my Austen chapter). According to my supervisor, dissertation chapters do tend to get longer the further into the process it gets. I've already embarked on that trend, with chapter two being about four pages longer than chapter one, even though the novel for chapter two was half as long as the novel for chapter one.

I have decided that trying to finish a dissertation is like chasing the horizon—it keeps receding no matter how hard you try.

Chapter Two finished

Revised yesterday and wrote the conclusion late this afternoon. Sent to my supervisor this evening.

Next: the syllabus. Because it never ends.

Pages written today: 1 (yes, a one-page conclusion)
Total pages: 47.5 (increase due to yesterday's revisions)

Mediocre writer, good editor

Original sentence:

What is most notable about the three kinds of spaces evident in the pawnshop room is how much flow is impeded in these spaces.

Revised sentence:

In each of the pawnshop room's three incarnations, flow is greatly impeded.

Original word count: 24
Revised word count: 12

I don't know whether to bemoan my writing skills or celebrate my editing skills.

this close

I am at 45 pages and missing a conclusion. I still need to go through it and make some revisions before sending it to my supervisor. I am meeting my supervisor this Thursday, which essentially gives me two days to whip this chaper into shape. We will not be discussing the chapter on Thursday since I have been so slow, but it would be nice to at least have the first draft finished.

I feel like I have been thisclose to finishing the chapter for a week, but each time I sit down to write, the analysis just keeps getting longer. I noticed something new about the novel's ending tonight so that had to be incorporated (yes, it was relevant). The end of a chapter is like the ever-receding horizon. It just gets further and further away the more you chase after it.

What I absolutely must do before submitting it is going through and revising. In its current state, I'm pretty sure that it's stronger than the first draft of chapter one, but frankly I haven't read the whole thing through in its entirety yet, so I could just be deluding myself.

Tomorrow's plan: print out all 45 pages, do a read-through and edit, and write a fucking conclusion.

Pages written today: 3
Running page count: 45 (!)
Pages written at conference, here and there: not sure

Vancouver

If the annual Congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (a massive umbrella conference consisting of lots of conferences of Canadian academic organizations) is indeed like summer camp but for academics, as I once heard it described, then the Congress at UBC this week was at the most beautiful campsite ever.

This is the library:


And the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, across the quad:


A rose garden (with mountains in the background):

And pretty flowers:


Oh, yeah, and I presented a paper at the ACCUTE conference. It was fine. Vancouver was awesome.