Valentine’s Day: got no cards, but a check from Queens’ College for £100 from their hardship fund so a not empty Valentine’s day after all! Actually, Queens’ has probably given me about £400 over the last 3 ½ years, so I can hardly complain. American universities do that , then ask you to be a TA for about a year. It certainly helps me hold out.
This morning I rewrote the conclusion to the dissertation, recommended by Winter, or at least a I think he recommended. After reflection I concluded the “structure” of the dissertation was perfectly fine just the way it is, and tried to write a conclusion defending my choice. I’m getting more scrappy and pugilistic as I have begun to smell the distinct odor of some sharks gathering around to try and keep my from getting this degree. If my usual submission isn’t going to work, I’m going on the defensive to defend my work against those who seem to want to give me shit for it. One sign of professionalism, I suppose, is to stake your position and not back down to attacks by others who are in loftier positions and think therefore that they know better.
It strikes me that if I could do the conclusion in an hour, I could probably do a whole new thesis in a day or two. Well, not quite, but this has been my point all along: instead of waiting on my butt I could make the changes and get out of here.
It also occurred to me that I did the same thing at Warwick: I left not knowing whether what I did was good enough for the degree or not, whether I ‘d even be called back for viva. Then I was more confident and secure, however, probably because the degree wasn’t as important and meant nothing to my future career, on which this degree hinges. But if I only truly have 1 in 100 chance of failing, odds look pretty good.
Reading others’ theses, I really can’t see why mine is in any way inferior, and I’ll make a big scrap if I need to, to get this degree. Unlike in the past, I’m now realizing that sometimes the best defense is a good offense….
As I think about my situation right now, in anxious limbo…then not knowing about jobs, where or if, and the heavy load and demands that will be placed upon me for success, which means retention as opposed to failure, which means “not tenure.” I wonder what my life would have been like had I just stayed working as a journalist….I think back to those days on the Forum, rushing out here and there to cover meetings or other stories, typing into these old IBM “Selectric” typewriters and their queer “scanner copy” letters, which had to be produced perfectly on the page (what an absurd system!).
—Feb. 14, 1991, Cambridge, England [I was a Ph.D. student at Queens’ College Cambridge at this time waiting for word on my dissertation. I ended up having to revise. “Winter” was my advisor, Jay Winter.]
OtD 