Sick of Floundering
I'm entertaining the idea of going back to school rather than finish my thesis.
Trying to find an angle for the thesis has become really really frustrating. Most of the scholarly stuff out there about utopianism, I can translate from academia to understandable brainwaves. Then I can't see where stuff from a pure interpretative viewpoint gets the ideas.
After the problem of trying to digest the information comes trying to find some kind of angle that applies to both literature and historical instances of utopianism.
If I do go back to school, I want to go for the same subject. I want to refine it. I want to learn more about how to approach the topic. I may drop the historical side or not, but I do want to get this thing done, so I can move onto more interesting professional endeavors, problems and familial challenges like having kids, owning a home and so forth.
I ran into something called Activity Theory that looks it could help. Unfortunately, I've grown pretty cynical of these great theories that sound like they could help with the thesis. I may investigate a little deeper for the sake of curiousity.
Unless something comes up fortuitously, though, I'll just read the book I ordered from Amazon.com about attending school as an adult, make meetings during another March trip to Chicago then possibly apply if one of their programs sound good.
I've had enough of this floundering.
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5 comments:
sometimes its better to flounder than it is to crab.
Wha?
But something that really annoys me: I habiutally won't give up on thinking about the topic. I keep trying to find that angle.
Dang it! I can't let go, but I might just have to.
I ended up completing my BA at another school, and did a thesis there that was very similar to my (abandoned one semester before graduation because I was crazy) Marlboro plan. I'm actually really happy I did it that way; I attended three schools while pursuing my BA (not counting random classes elsewhere) and each provided its own depth and breadth of knowledge. So don't feel trapped by the need to finish your Marlboro plan at Marlboro. This isn't an all-or-nothing situation.
Thanks for the note of support, Nora.
Luckily I don't want to finish it because of some kind of deep connection with Marlboro or something like that makes me feel like I HAVE to graduate from Marlboro.
Unfortunately, it's the money/time/energy issue. . .how do I get the money to do it and still pay the rent/food, how do I make the time for it while working full time to pay the rent/food (I have a strong emotional memory of feeling drained by just taking one class at a Boston school a little more than a year ago) and along with the time issue, there's just something not fun about working full time and pulling Sunday all nighters to finsih papers.
So yeah, for me, the cost-benefit analysis over the last five years led me to believe that it would be more cost effective to just work on my thesis rather than go back to school.
Now I don't know the final cost analysis, so I'm exploring both paths until I get frustrated by one or probably by the fall.
But woah. . .I didn't know you abandoned Marlboro at the end. I assume that when you say that you went crazy, you mean Marlboro drove you crazy rather than you were crazy to abandon it.
Yeah, woah. . ..
More like "crazy to abandon an important and interesting project just because I 'wasn't feeling it' and missed living in a city." But that's all water under the bridge now.
And I hear you on working + going to school = no fun. I tried several times to finish up before I finally found something that worked for me. So good luck. I'm sure it will all come together for you, one way or the other.
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