Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose

After working without ceasing for over three weeks on my thesis - and by "working without ceasing," I am talking about getting out of bed, walking to my desk with a cup of coffee, firing up my mac, and opening up the newest round of unending edits from Dr. C and not stopping work until it was time to go to bed...frequently at 3 am - I found out today that I cannot graduate with my friends in August. Here are the things that I thought first:

--my paper really is as bad as I thought.
--I am a severe and incredible failure.
--I am not supposed to be doing this and dropping out would save me a bunch of cash.
--I will never stop receiving edits from Dr. C.
--I am in hell.

After yet another round of hysterics and a good long discussion with three of the greatest people in the world - Courtney, MJ and Gary - I began to look at this completely differently.

I can take my thesis back. It had gotten out of control and I had long ago stopped feeling that I was doing much more than taking transcription. Why this happened the way that it did is not important to me - I know that I have done more than I'm required to do in order to graduate by at least three times. Dr. C said I had at least two theses, possibly three, in my one thesis, but this still, of course, is not quite enough. I don't have the required thesis, completed and defended, and I won't have it by 7/20 which is the deadline. And in order for me to meet that deadline, Dr. C said she would have to have "another day like yesterday," when she spent all day on my thesis...sort of like my past 21 days have been. Guess what I haven't done recently?

--Bathed
--Walked the dog
--Shopped for food
--Laundry
--Cleaned the house
--Written for fun
--Smiled
--Played
--Enjoyed life

Guess what I'm not doing now? Thesising. Guess what else I'm doing? Shopping for other schools. And smiling.