Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Thesis Update No.1

As you might know, I am doing Honours in English this year. Well, it is officially four and a half weeks to go until the thesis is due. I thought I would put my blog to some actual use and turn it into a motivational tool by posting updates on the progress of my thesis a couple of times a week. No doubt my mind shall gradually go crazier and crazier as my thesis progresses, so I shall try to report on that too :)

Anyway, after that little introduction, here is my first update:

Progress on thesis: 600 words out of 12,500 are written, though perhaps 50 to 80 of those are still in point form. But I am counting them anyway! It's my Right!!! Also printed out an article (which I still have to read) and thought some more about how I want to structure the main body of the thesis. I am fairly happy with the current plan of doing a close reading (of two children's novels by Nan Chauncy) and then applying theory to the close readings to come to a better understanding of how the texts work and the impacts they have upon children's perceptions of Tasmanian Aborigines.

State of Mind: Relatively calm, considering the personal crisises that have been taking place (all totally unrelated to the thesis) and the looming deadline. And considering I have a 5000 word essay to write AS WELL!!! by the 13th of October. Yup, thats 17,000 words I still need to write in 4 1/2 weeks. Well, 3 1/2 weeks really because the thesis needs to be finished early so my supervisor can go over it and so that I can get it bound. That's nearly a thousand words a day!!! Okay, I think I need to update my state of mind since writing this paragraph. Now feeling ever-so-slightly overwhelmed. Ah well, I'm sure I'll get over it!

Days left until the due date (24th October): Thirty. Yup that's all. 30. Three-zero.

Issues: Somewhere between now and the 11th of October I need to buy a nice black cardigan/cute jacket and dress shoes and a wedding present! I love weddings but this is really awkward timing. I need to buy some new pantyhose, too.

Good Things: My husband bought a new ink cartridge for our printer so now I can print out stuff at home. This will be really helpful when I come to editing my thesis (if I have enough time for that haha!) because it is so so so so so much easier to see mistakes on paper than it is on a screen. Don't ask me why. Another good thing is that once I get this in I will have four months of holidays. And while I am writing it I can eat as much chocolate as I like and not feel guilty!

Optimistic Requests: Can someone send me brownies??? Or chocolate mud cake???