I thought I’d be sick of talking about it by now, but as I stared at the blank page for five minutes, I realized that I could talk about nothing else.
A thesis, I’ve heard it said, is like some kind of second-semester medical condition. Symptoms include: anxiety, increased desire to procrastinate, dry eyes, an erratic ability to fill a page (or, ahem, a column) with utter nonsense and a heightened sensitivity in the presence of competitive fellow writers. I’m stealing this metaphor merely to elaborate upon a culture that is all too familiar to me, to my fellow thesis-patients and to the underclassmen—quarantined first-years and anxious juniors alike—who watch us groan.
I had a dream the other night that my thesis reader called to speak to me. I was sitting on a remote beach and was wearing sunglasses. I picked up a phone that looked very much like a coconut and heard his voice on the other end. He wanted to know why I had turned in 100 blank pages in lieu of a thesis. He then told me that my “stunt” would have been an acceptable, even admirable, postmodern stunt if I had turned in 40-60 blank pages. But words or no words, 100 pages was frightfully over the limit. When I woke up the next morning, I understood the insidious nature of my condition.
For instance, as a second-semester class begins, a professor will ask the jittery rabble for questions about the course. Invariably one among us will blurt it out: “Will this class be making accommodations for thesis-writing seniors?”
Pause. Uncomfortable silence. Among the clan for whom a wrong answer equals more shopping, tension and anticipation builds as the professor, fumbling to mix the right dose of anesthetizing sympathy with academic severity in front of what seems like a thousand pairs of eyes, weighs his options.
“I’ll see what can be done.” Outrage. Does he realize that the five-page paper is due three days before my THESIS?!? Unbelievable, all this for a stupid Core that I should have taken instead of that weird freshman seminar about aliens. Does he know I won’t be going to class that month, that I’ll be sleep-deprived, food-deprived, liiiiiiiiife-deprived and therefore unable (read: unwilling) to function in the academic world?
And of course there are the awkward but unavoidable conversations with some well-wisher who asks the question no one should ask: “So what’s your thesis about?” I get the question everywhere: on the shuttle, before class, after class, waiting in line to check my e-mail in the Science Center, from the girl in the bathroom stall next to mine in Lamont…who I don’t even know, by the way. Here’s a hint: I’ve been thinking and writing about this for the last year, don’t ask that question unless you have at least two hours to spare and a penchant for making me feel like the drivel I’m feeding you tastes oh-so-delicious.
As the deadline approaches, a thesis writer finds that every aspect of life begins to resemble his or her topic in a kooky, freakish way. No more strawberry yogurt in the dining hall. Interesting, yes, the empty metal canister seems to recall the all-too-familiar Beckettian void created by the obligation to speak and the ironic knowledge that one has nothing to say. I’ll have to footnote that. I never thought that 40–60 pages of text about English literature could so completely distract me from the real world. The Olympics went by (or are going by…I confess, I’m not sure if they’re done or not) in a blur; senior bacchanalia is nothing more than a few discarded e-mails and the faint notion that That Guy—a strange creature called the non-writer—seems hung over on a Wednesday morning.
With exactly two weeks left, I suppose I should get ready for the last and most dreadful stage of this strange condition—the complete breakdown in personal maintenance. It’ll start, I guess, with my not having time for the frilly stuff like make-up and crisp new outfits that anyone could do without anyway. Next we switch to low maintenance outfits only: jeans and big sweaters first, then sweats and house slippers. And then the hair will look a little rattier and the sweats a little more worn in. I’ll report back in two weeks with an update on my condition.
