Writing this Lit Review is Super, Thanks for Asking

I would like to thank every kind soul who has innocently asked “how’s the writing going?” lately. I defer to the eloquence of Big Gay Al:

My writing is not half as brilliant as this guy who adapted T. S. Eliot’s Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock for the technology age. It’s not a quarter as brilliant as MC Lars somehow rapping T. S. Eliot into a song.

But there is slow and steady progress being made, and for that I am grateful. Because it’s inexplicably hard. I think it’s the sheer volume of work involved, knowing that each and every word will be analyzed by my committee for what’s there and not there, for the sheer reward of jumping into an uncertain academic job market at the trough of the slowest hiring time of the year. It might be easier if I knew right now that I could afford to turn on my air conditioner this summer and at least be comfortable, but given that this line of thinking is one of the stupid habits you develop growing up poor, I should probably just try to ignore this as much as possible and just keep going.

So onward. Here’s the literature review outline:

The literature is all coded and organized within this outline and needs to be put in sentence form. If I send this to my advisor before he leaves the country, and complete my data analysis and send that to him too, and he approves of all this writing enough to send to my full committee by March 1, and they all agree that it’s good enough to set up a defense date, and I defend by March 30, I’ll graduate in May.

After all, if I can’t afford to turn on the AC, at least I’ll be a doctor who can’t afford it. Here’s to slowly working towards the sense of accomplishment of finishing this PhD and edging one step closer to the next chapter in life, which will truly be a fresh, blank page.