There comes a time in every senior’s life when he gets out of bed, looks in a mirror and says “Hey, maybe I ought to leave a lasting impression on this school.” While the smart idea would be pulling a colossal prank, many people volunteer (read: sacrifice) their fun time in order to craft a thesis.
Ah, the thesis. It’s the culmination of four years of studying, class-taking, and paper-writing. The word itself evokes an image of a true academic, a snotty literati. And the phrase is a perfect “Get out of commitments free” card. Don’t want to see your friend’s modern dance recital?—“Well I just have to work on my thesis.” Too exhausted from a two-day binge of partying to have lunch with friends?—“I’d love to, but you know, this thesis is really killing me.”
In truth, I’m not writing a real thesis. Hell, it’s not even a senior essay. Officially, the project is an individual tutorial with the end result being a manuscript comprised of eight pieces of short fiction. In actuality, I’m churning out a million-page creative work without honors credits that no one else will read, except for me, the advisor and possibly the pet I adopt in the future that will fill the emptiness in my life.
This project began last semester with the details thrown together rather haphazardly. I had done a lot of writing over the summer break, and in my humblest opinion, I deserved a Pulitzer Prize for my work. There were three finished stories, eight half-finished works, some 1000-word essays, and three-quarters of a spiral notebook filled with musings. Surely, this should be the basis of a creative writing endeavor.
I didn’t meet the requirements, but I begged and pleaded to get an individual project started—the justification being that I didn’t even want the dumb honors credit. Screw graduating with some crusty Latin phrase on the degree; this was my personal labor. I set myself up with an amazing visiting writer and got to work. Well, in reality I got to drinking, but there were spurts where I’d spew out a good ten pages. My advisor was as encouraging as possible and under his wing I managed to eke out eighty pages that got whittled down. I handed in the project, grabbed a beer and called it a day.
Let me tell you, printing out all sixty-three pages, slapping on a fancy-font cover, and adding an acknowledgments page felt absolutely amazing (I even inserted inside jokes and oblique references to friends of yore). Completely satisfied, I stared at my finished work like it was a pin-up poster. Here I’d gone and created my own porno, a personal sex symbol I could masturbate to for hours. Fittingly, I propped it on a wall and stared at the cover with sunglasses on, for fear of being blinded by its excellence.
Regardless, I knew this project wasn’t actually finished and I decided to extend the project through this semester. Unfortunately my first advisor took off for parts unknown and I scrambled to get a new one—this time a tenured female professor. So I met with my thesis—excuse me—individual project advisor and brought my new advisor my labor of love. After tricking me into ripping apart my own masterpiece (something akin to self-cannibalism), she further pulverized the stories to a bloody pulp.
“You look sad,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
Dismissively waving my hand, I say “Of course it is.”
“Trust me, you’re taking it a lot better than other people. Some students just slap words down on a page and expect me to worship them.”
I covered up my grimace with a laugh.
“I have to tell these kids ‘Look your work is not the Sistine Chapel!’”
Talk about being shut down. Part of me wanted to cut my losses and take an actual class; the other part wanted to snatch the pen out of her hands and commit hari-kari. There was a third part—the part I jokingly refer to as Laquisha—that demanded a finger-snapping retort. “Who do you think you are?” I’d start, popping my Juicy Fruit gum. “Oh no you didn’t, how dare you come up in here, call my work crap and then expect everything to be okay? This shall not stand!” In the end, I didn’t do anything, because I realized she was completely right and because I needed to put a lot more effort into what I put down on the page.
That encounter taught me something, about myself and about the process of collaboration. Prior to that day, I thought my commitment was the alpha and the omega, and the actual mechanics of writing relegated to mere finger work. I used to think the act of declaring a project deserved recognition, fame, and hordes of undergarments tossed at my feet. But we thesis writers are not the true sufferers. The worst week ever award belongs to the teachers who have to pore through pages and pages of our muck in addition to putting up with our senior-diva attitudes.
Just as we eliminate leisure time to knuckle down to the computer, these people also rearrange their schedules to listen to us prattle on about our works. And while we may know how to bust out an eight-page paper in a weekend, we don’t know when too much is too much, nor do we know when the writing sounds tiresome and boring. I’ve talked to so many thesis and senior essay writers who get offended by their teachers’ suggestions. And they always come in two forms: “Ugh, I can’t believe my advisor expects me to cut out this chapter because it’s ninety pages” or “You’d think my prof would understand I have writer’s block and nothing to show yet.” Newsflash seniors, quit your bitching, chain yourself to your desk, and do some comprehensive edits.
My proclamation to advisors everywhere: quash the arrogance flat. Do it now, in the beginning of the year, before we haughty seniors think we can get away with grammatical errors and adderol-induced word vomit. Start telling us that we (and by extension our topics) are not inherently worthy of praise. While it is impressive to pull together a hundred pages in about a year, it is not impressive to whine about a project and constantly promulgate its importance. Advisors of the world, unite! End the cycle of delusion, say our project needs major work, and utilize that red pen to the fullest.
As for me, I’m going to sit down and go through all sixty-three blood-and-ink soaked pages, excising errors and shaping up the tone and the plot. My manuscript may not be the ceiling of the chapel but it’s starting to become a pretty good rough sketch.
Leave a Reply