Good news! But first, a parable:
My first year of college, I'm hanging out in my dorm room with some friends, and a friend of theirs whom I'd just met. Let's call him CM (for Cookie Monster). Maybe we've just watched Monty Python -- we're lying on the floor or the futon, cracking nerdy jokes or some such. The conversation hits a lull, and CM turns to me and asks nonchalantly,
"Do you have something that I could eat all of?"
I look nonplussed.
"I just, feel like eating all of something."
I remember there is a partially-eaten box of cookies that could be sacrificed to the Monster's all-consuming (literally) hunger. He eats them. End of parable.
I can't really describe how confused I was at that moment. I had never associated the activity of eating with the idea of consuming a pregiven quantity. For days, I quoted him bemusedly to other friends. But (while I still don't tend to choose my food according to my ability to eat all of it) I do understand his obsession with finitude and completion.
The news is that I've submitted a chapter draft to my advisors. It's (temporarily) finished. That's what I've been working on the past four weeks, ever since getting back from California. And I kind of found it impossible to write anything else, including blog posts, while I was working on it. I had to get it done, to the point that I even typed up the bibliography.
I don't really know why I found the cookie episode so bewildering at the time. I love consuming all of things.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
Congratulations!!
Wonderful news!
Huzzah!
I love. Love. your parable. :)
And whooohooo!
Yay!
woo-hoo! i'm glad you're back, too!!
I am so jealous. I want to finish all of comps now ! You might have just motivated me. Oh no. this is a disaster, I might actually have to go DO something now! how about a race... comps vs. dissertation? that's totally fair, right?
Thanks, all!
Hi, Alice - do you have a blog? In any case, welcome!
Soph, er, I don't know how we'd quite manage that, since I'd hope you finish your comps well before my dissertation. How about we have a race -- comps vs. my finishing Season 4 of The Wire? Although I warn you that's likely to happen in the next couple of days... Comps vs. my eating all of something?
Cooooo-keees. Missed you; congratulations on the good work!
Hooray! And I, too, love the parable.
Congratulations and welcome back.
Post a Comment