You must be logged in to be able to see this content.
This picture made me realize
You must be logged in to be able to see this content.
The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
When I finished my lab work back in 2000, I just had to write and submit my thesis to get my M.Sc. It was January and the deadline was 9 months away. I took a full month just to do nothing, mainly because I was exhausted. Then I took a month to organize my background reading material, format my document, write a ToC and then… fuck all. In the interim, I started a full-time job. I’d occasionally glance at the box with all my thesis and lab shit, but mostly I avoided it. The months passed, as they are wont to do. Then it was to the point where I had a week left. I told my boss not to fire me, but not pay me, and that he wouldn’t see me for a week. I bought a carton of cigarettes, moved my coffee maker on to my desk, and went to work. I’d work non-stop from 10am to 6am. I chain smoked. I lived on Salonica take-out (this was prior to my allergies breaking out, so I could still do shit like that). I had a 20-hour WinAmp (it really kicks the llama’s ass) playlist. Every time I heard a Britney Spears song, it was my cue to get up and move around a bit.
After a couple of days, I gave my intro, background and methods to my thesis supervisor for him to review while I started working on my results and discussion. A couple of more days and I swapped the first set of corrections with the latest material. I still remember that on the Friday morning when it was due, at around 6am, I was in my office at work printing out my first full copy of my thesis. I had to stop by a copy center to have it copied and bound, then stop by the thesis office to hand it in – at around 3pm. I’d done it. That night, on the terrace roof of the building I was living in, I drank a couple of bottles of bubbly with some friends, got drunk and went to bed. I woke up some time on Sunday with the mother of all headaches.