Self-inflicted injury doesn't hurt any less, it just makes people way less sympathetic

Warning: this entry deals with thesis woes. Skip if you're tired of hearing about it or object to wallowing.

My thesis is coming along despite all my best attempts to prevent it. I've given myself some sort of mental block that makes it impossible to compose at the computer; instead I have ten pages of alternating black and blue ink with various incarnations of my handwriting, from the excruciatingly tidy, minescule print to the flowing cursive that covers large amounts of space in one swoop of color. At some point I will have to type all of this, going back to find and fill in the quotes which I refuse to copy out, marking instead "(qt. p. 8)."

I have written two and three-quarters of the five ten-page segments I have planned for the project; I should really have the rough draft finished by now. At this rate, that won't happen until next Monday, which is also, somehow appropriately, Tax Day. Fortunately, those I did in February.

My writing comes miserably slowly, no more than a page an hour, unless I use some monstrously huge block quotes, and even then, it takes time to hunt them down. That means I have at least 20 more hours of serious writing ahead of me. I can't work for more than two hours straight without a sizeable break, "sizeable" meaning at least 30 minutes.

Worst of all, in the end, what I'm writing about isn't important to anybody but me, and this is the career I have chosen. Literature analysis that will be read by, if I'm lucky, a few professors and their unlucky undergraduate students, who will skim and highlight and then forget. And this isn't even good enough for that—I'm still the undergraduate.

Plus, nobody will talk to me on IM, and my house is ridiculously hot! I'm sorry, I have to go cry in my shower and then mope my way to bed.

Thanks for attending my pity party.