a sibilant intake of breath

Turns out it’s a good thing I printed off a draft thesis to scrutinize: a significant number of little typographical and grammatical errors were there to be found. Many of them, it seems, were actually introduced during the previous round of revision, especially in places where I was converting passive sentences into active ones. Somehow, I seem to have lost dozens of connector words like ‘the’ and ‘for.’ They are being systematically re-introduced.

Tomorrow morning, I am joining a convoy of fellow M.Phil in IR students cycling to Headington where – it is promised – there is a printer who can produce hardbound copies of our theses for less than £30 a copy, ready in time to be submitted on Monday. I wanted to have it done for tomorrow, but I found out today that having a copy prepared for tomorrow would be absurdly expensive: more than £50 a copy. Even £30 seems pretty steep. After all, we are talking about two pieces of cardboard, some plastic, and a few minutes of labour. I suppose the print shops here have a captive audience to exploit.

[Update: 1:00am] The thing is now in its final digital format. In eight hours, I am cycling over to Headington to have it printed and bound. I would print it myself, but I have no access to a printer that is (a) not broken and (b) stocked with paper.

Somehow, no language can express the concept of ‘thesis struggle’ quite so well as German can: a fact that is evident even to those who don’t speak a word of it. If I could use twenty character compound words at will, the word limit would be less of a concern. As it stands, I am trying to figure out ways to reduce the number of words used up in footnotes. The incentives created by including them in the count are quite perverse: I am removing useful little bits of additional information, as well as reformatting citations into forms that will be more difficult for the examiners to deal with.

I look forward to being interesting again. That is to say, having the time and brainpower to write about anything other than the thesis.

PS. Looking for something new to read about? Try the island of Gukanjima, near Japan. Once a coal mining centre and the most densely populated urban space on earth in 1959, it is now totally abandoned. Have a look at this short documentary or this history, more detailed than the one in the Wikipedia entry.

While distant forests shrieked at me from afar this afternoon, I printed off a copy of the most recent versions of my three substantive chapters and reviewed them in the Wadham Library. As much as I am used to spending ten hours of more watching words glow on an LCD display, editing only seems to reach its full potential when there are things to be crossed out, big arrows to be drawn, and incisive notes to be written with the margins.

Generally, I am quite happy with what is written. Things are not arranged or argued in quite the waythey would be if I started over now, but the major themes that arose from my research are reasonably well articulated. As has been the case for the past week, the biggest task remaining is the relocation of some bits of what has already been written and the filling in of some gaps.

I may even be able to attend the thesis-completion barbecue that some members of my program are holding on Friday evening.