Ouch!

Hey, I am not sure if I told you but while I was home for 5 weeks in during June and July, I was working on my first draft for my dissertation which is due September 15th. I e-mailed the draft to my dissertation supervisor Gary on the 14th of July.

This past Friday I meet with him to discuss it and his critiques were very disappointing and extremely harsh but in all very good and helpful.To tell you the truth, the hardest part was not the fact that he thought the draft was poorly written but the fact that I dedicated night and day to that 56 page draft for two and a half weeks straight.

Now when I say dedicated, I am talking no sleep, shutting my family out, stressed out. It was a not so pretty two weeks (and then some) of my life. During the five weeks, I spent a full week with my niece that I have not seen in months and I did not make any time to hangout with her. She asked me to play with her and I didn't because I was writing the draft. I made this draft more important than her.

I was overly stressed and I put my all into that draft but now it felt like it was all for nothing. I am sorry, but I am never doing that again, I know it is my dissertation and it is important but it is surely not important than my niece. I wish I had that time back and I would have put this silly draft on the back burner instead of my niece. Wow, I am literally in tears right now thinking about it. I so regret my actions. Starting now, I will not put my family on the backburner for sheets of paper, it seems so silly to me. Gosh, what in the world was I thinking.

What's silly is that Gary is extremely picky at my writing. When I reviewed his comments, I realized they are very personal. It is like he did not like a word or phrase I used because he personally would not have used it himself. Then he goes and writes in his suggestions. However, I would never write like him because obviously I am not Gary, plain and simple. For instance, I initially wrote:

The New York Times and the Washington Post characterized them as the “rebels” or “guerrillas” and in a few reports they were even described as “insurgents”. Although their actions said otherwise, the Moujahedeen were not referred to as terrorists, dictators and human rights violators.

Gary suggested:

Twenty years ago, the New York Times and the Washington Post characterized them as the “rebels” or “guerrillas” and “insurgents”. The Moujahedeen were rarely referred to as terrorists, dictators and human rights violators. The contrast with today's portrayal of the same groups could not be more profound.

Now this is a great suggestion and only an idiot would refuse to use it, but that last sentence is so not me. Do you know what I am saying? It is like having a conversation with someone and you think to yourself, "I would have never thought of that" or "I would have never said that". This is how I feel with 85 percent of Gary's suggestions.

It is hurtful because in some places he is telling me to edit my work and I’m thinking, "I did". I seriously pushed myself to finish the draft on the 12th of July so I could have two days of editing. I had my friend Alakie, my sister Romise and my bro-in-law Mark all take a look at it, including myself and I was very critical. I can't edit my writing so that it doesn't become my writing anymore.

There were also plenty of areas in my draft where he is saying information was not relevant and some of them I agree with and other I didn’t. I feel as though I need to include this information to explain the point I am making. It is like someone telling you a joke about a priest, a baker, and a carpenter that lived on a hill but they don't mention that part, instead they start at the middle of the joke and you're left asking "what?". You have to give some background to the point you are making.

The sad part is Gary is marking my dissertation, so I have to follow his suggestions or I fail. The thing is he is a good supervisor but he just doesn't get me at all. The one thing I hate is teaming up with someone who does not know and understand me.

However, a sister has to do what a sister has to do. We’ll see what happens. Adios now.

D