"Don't Know Much About History"

It's done. After months of struggle, it's finally done.

Well, I hope it's done. I don't have enough time to do another major overhaul before the Defense deadline (December 10).

I've sunk alot of time and effort into this paper. I've spent many sleepless nights working on it, contemplating it, dissecting it in my head, working on it while I toss and turn and ball up the sheets into a tangled mass of linen. I'm struggled with this paper, and in the process, I've discovered I was struggling with myself.

I've confronted my inability to complete things. I've faced my tendency to put things off until panic mode sets in. I've admitted my weaknesses and fears, I've stood up for my strengths and abilities, and I've come out the other side of this whole long mess with a deeper understanding of myself.

Perhaps that's trite. Perhaps I'm assigning too much to this 30 page paper. I mean, I've written an average of 60-70 pages per semester since I got to OU. This paper shouldn't have been difficult, shouldn't have been that different from the other papers I've written here.

Except that...it was different. Is different, whatever. The Thesis has been a very different beast, something I've wrestled with since I first came up with a topic. Until tonight, I wasn't even sure what I was trying to say with it. But I think this paper represents my stay here at OU. It's been tentative, working in fits and starts, sometimes muddled and unclear, drug out longer than it needed to be. The paper has been my albatross.

I never wanted to come to OU. I wanted to go far away, I wanted to leave this area of the country and experience something new. But I was shackled here, and I resented it. I resented the school, and the History Department, and the fact that other schools didn't recognize my obvious talent (whether that talent is real or not is a subjective issue, really). I was mad at being forced to come here, really.

And then I met a few people who made my time here seem at passable at worst and downright entertaining at best. And somewhere along the line, 'round about the time I started getting rejecetion letters from grad schools for the PhD, OU seemed suddenly safe, and familiar, and easy to remain at. So work on the paper got slower and slower, my initiative and drive and motivation dried up like a puddle in August, and here I am, months after I thought I'd be finished (actually, almost a year after the initial date I set for my completion of this degree), just now getting to the home stretch. There's still too much to be done in the next few weeks, even assuming I can get the Thesis defended this semester. But suddenly I have hope that it can be done. I have motivation again. I have a desire to move on. I'm ready to go, I'm ready to experience something new and different and exciting. I'm ready.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Traveling Wilburys, "End of the Line"