Mather House resident Ryan M. Buchholz '96 can easily sympathize with Smagula's plight.

A special concentrator in Latin American studies, Buchholz reports that although he is still technically crunching data for his thesis, he currently has amassed "some 20-odd pages" of writing.

Buchholz' thesis, which is due April 3, will focus on Mexico City residents who have diabetes.

"I'm being advised by a guy in the Department of Social Medicine at the Medical School because the discipline I'm writing from is anthropology," he says.

In an anxious tone, Buchholz concedes that he is "behind pace," but still managing to get enough sleep and maintain his weekend social activities.

When asked whether he thinks his stress level will increase in the coming weeks as his thesis deadline looms closer, Buchholz replies, "I don't know, but I think that's likely."

"[My classes] haven't been terribly time-consuming," says the senior, who is taking Philosophy 192: "Thinking about Thinking," a core class and a religion course while he writes his thesis. "So far, it hasn't been hard to write my thesis and take these classes because I haven't had any hard papers, projects or exams."

Still, Buchholz says he feels stress at times.

"Sometimes, it seems distracting to have to read a novel when that's more pressing immediately, but when I know my thesis has a lot of longterm work remaining," he says.

Hemsey

David F. Hemsey '96, an Eliot House social studies concentrator, is counting down to that final moment four weeks from now--on March 21--when he will hand in his thesis. In the meantime, stress has become a subtle factor in his life.

"I'm not a stressful type person," Hemsey says. "But for a non-stressful-type person, it's occupying my days.... Like, the thesis is my day."

Hemsey, who says he tends to be a night worker, is suffering from an acute form of sleep deprivation.

"I usually stay up till four or five every morning, but then I don't have very many classes," says Hemsey, whose courses meet only two or three days per week.

Hemsey's thesis, which is on professionalization and genetic testing, is well underway, according to its author.