A Tale of Two Meetings (& Finally a Dissertation Update - #8)

First, I want to thank everyone for your support after last post, it means a lot to me. Blogging has kept me afloat these past two years in a way that you can't really imagine (or maybe you can if you're also a blogger).

A few posts ago I gave away the results of my recent meetings, but I wanted to go back and compare how I felt this October to how I felt after the meeting in May so you can understand how much this new perspective means to me and my drive to finish the dissertation.

1st Scenario:
Although the meeting itself went fairly well, I felt quite negatively about it, as I have briefly stated before here. I had sent drafts of the first two chapters to my advisor, with whom I had already gone through 5 drafts of chapter one and 3 drafts of chapter two, and a committee member. The advisor didn't read the new drafts (I concede there weren't that many changes, but I think he should have read them) and the committee member had many negative comments to make about the material. She said that she was expecting these to be later, more polished drafts and that these were still very repetitive and needed lots of cuts and edits. She had issues with the introduction -- which, you know, was the first thing I wrote, very tentatively, since the research had not been done yet, I knew I'd have to rewrite it, but then at that meeting I felt sorry for ever attempting to write an introduction when the work was not finished yet. Her comments made me realize anew and very strongly that the feedback I'd been getting from my advisor was not "deep" enough, since for him, chapter one looked pretty good (I wrote about this on item 1 of my last dissertation update post, last July).

I never attempted to process what I felt them and try to express it until many months later. Last month (on September 17), I started thinking about it and jotted down some impressions. Even writing these down made me feel devastated all over again. I wrote this as a blog post, but I never finished editing/ polishing it, so it's pretty "raw:"

All right, prepare yourselves; I’m in “crisis mode” again.

I have been postponing for many months now dealing the feelings that enveloped me at the meeting I had with my advisor and one committee member on May 12, 2006. So, these are very delayed reactions [to the meeting.]

When a reader has lots of problems with the writing, [pointing out its] repetition, lack of objectivity and, most importantly, when a reader shows impatience with the work because it’s not well written or maybe "boring."

It’s a horrible feeling. No one is ever going to read this anyway. Perhaps a handful or two handfuls of people, maximum. If the people who are supposed to read it so they can help me write it are not interested in it, think it’s bad, the dissertation writer is left with an AWFUL feeling.

If these people, who are closest to me, who have been following this project since its inception many years ago think it’s a waste of their time to read all these 150+ pages -- what does that tell me about the value of this work? If they’re not interested on it, who else is going to be? How can I find strength to go on with these things in mind?

The advisor is extremely busy with 5 other students working on their MA thesis and Ph.D. dissertations right now, apart from a heavier than usual load of teaching.

The other committee member has been publishing exciting anthologies and is involved in her own work. She is also very bright and very opinionated…

I felt utterly defeated.

Writing a dissertation feels absolutely [I didn't finish the sentence]

I know half of my committee won’t really read the dissertation before the defense, they’re just too busy, they just do it because it’s their duty to be there, to show their support, but it’s all “pro forma” as we say it in Portuguese – just a formal requirement, it doesn’t mean they really care about this stuff. They have to sit on countless committees, read countless dissertations.

Academic work is not only thankless, it’s also useless!!!

2nd Scenario:

First of all, I met separately with my advisor and the committee member. Secondly, my advisor had read my latest drafts a few weeks earlier, I hadn't just sent new things to him. Third, the committee member hadn't seen any of my work since May and the purpose of our meeting was to show her the results of the research I did in July.

The advisor said he was greatly pleased with my work, that I just needed to write the conclusions to the last chapters, a final conclusion and go back and edit the introduction. He emphasized that for him I've already "passed" and that the research work I'm doing is far superior to many people in my field. Lots of them simply draw their conclusions based on generalizations, but I have done a detailed and extensive study, creating real data, real numbers, something almost no one in this field does. He finished saying that now all that was left was finding me a job. He knows that my husband is also in the market and he was able to fully understand my situation since he has followed his wife twice and everything worked out in the end (he only got tenure a few years ago, though).

When I showed the data and the graphs and charts to my committee member she was so excited that it sent a thrill down my spine. She was stunned by all the work I had done and said it was valuable work, not just as a contribution to the subject I'm dealing with, but which brought a brand new perspective that could enrich a literary analysis of the works in question. Then I started talking about a new idea that I had to contextualize my study, something I may be able to accomplish only because my mom is going to pay two college students in Brazil to collect data for me, and she was so enthusiastic about it, I almost couldn't believe it. I barely mentioned this to my advisor, since my dissertation already contains the work of two dissertations in it, and this third project could almost be a dissertation in and of itself, but she saw its value, she understood it fully (since she is, after all, the only committee member knowledgeable about Brazil). I felt absolutely energized, ready to go back to work on the research. (Feel free to email me if you want to know more details about my work, I just don't want to give out the details here in the blog).

I left with my self-confidence boosted to levels never before experienced, it was truly soaring as high as it could possibly go. I also felt/feel certain that I could/can go ahead and finish this, that it's completely worth it, that I am a good researcher. I called my mom that night and shared all this with her. She had had surgery only two days before and I knew that this would mean a lot to her since she was here and witnessed my despondency on the days following the May meeting.

I know it's not going to be easy to finish while caring for my boys full time, but I have all this confidence now, and I know all my blogging friends -- you -- are out there supporting me, so I know I can do it. The hard part will be trying to apply to a handful of jobs. My heart is not on it, but I know I must do it. The deadlines are coming up and I haven't yet finished revising my CV or started writing the letters... I don't feel motivated for that, although I should. My committe member said that it's going to be really hard to write the recommendation letters. She said that she's so enthusiastic about my work and my value as a scholar that it will be hard to make her readers believe her!

That's good to hear, isn't it?