wolven7 | Thesis/Academic Wangst

A Perfect Circle - [Rose]--- Sometimes you want someone to stand up for you; someone besides yourself. Someone to say "No, wait, listen to this person: s/he/it has an idea which they would like to share, and by god and damn it, it's a Good one."

But that happens in movies. That happens in books where people end up getting what they want, and only the "bad guys" get what they deserve. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a mentor? (Diary of Dreams - [Portrait of a Cynic]). Do you realise what it's like to stand almost completely alone in a field, and to have the one of the two people to whom you could turn be A) someone with whom you don't really connect, and B) Almost as universally reviled as the topic you're studying?

I have people to whom I can go for assistance. I know one person who's been where I am, and knows what this like. And I don't want you to misunderstand me: You may know what I'm doing and you may understand and stand by me, and I appreciate that, to Hell and back. I really fucking do, and I thank you. But, unless there's a specific something you're not telling me, your opinion doesn't carry much weight with my departments.

Muse - [Butterflies and Hurricanes]--- So, that in mind, I need to talk to people who know to whom I can go to make this fucking work. Someone who sees and fully understands that my thought process on this shit:

If my choice of topic and field of explication matters enough for a program to keep me out, then the fact that it matters to me enough to want to make sure I get what I want out of it, should come as no surprise.

Do you see what I mean? I've been told, again and again, that my project is too ambitious, that it's too large. I've also been told that ambition is good, and that everyone starts off large. "Do something that matters to you, something you know, and on which you'll be able to spend a year of your life. But, don't run too fast, or go too far." I've been told that what I want to do will be anathema to almost every philosophical Doctorate program in the country. And I tell them, over and over again, that therein lies precisely the reason I have to do it.

System of a Down - [Spiders]--- Academia. It is a world of limitations and boundaries. Borders and blockages designed to "test your ability to follow rules." Can you jump through hoops, without question? Then Welcome. Yes, it is important to be able to explore the literature on a single subject, very clearly and in great depth of detail, and I understand that. But when evert effort, on my part, to meet those levels of detail is met with the words "It's too broad, and too vauge," or "It's too ambitious," then I begin to lose sight of what the fuck there is to be done. I don't know how to make this anything they want, while keeping it what I want.

The Analog Girl - [Caffeine]--- I apologise for the space taken on your pages, by this depressing, disgusting rhetoric, but I needed to write this out, because it's been stewing in my head, for hours.

"Don't run too fast, or go too far."

I'm crawling, inch by inch, around a fucking closet. What more do you want?