Goodbye Grad School

I planned to start with "life is chaotic of late", but I recall few times over the last years when life hasn't been chaotic. I seem to breed projects and lists like bunnies. I don't usually do the sane thing and simplify either. Everything is done the right way, while researching and selecting that 'right way' are tasks in themselves. It is no wonder I feel so fractured. Of late I'm reminding myself frequently of this quote from James E. Faust, "...my dear granddaughters, you cannot do everything well at the same time. You cannot be a 100 percent wife, a 100 percent mother, a 100 percent church worker, a 100 percent career person, and a 100 percent public-service person at the same time." I may not be able to do everything all at once, but when done sequentially I hope to fit a lot in this only life of mine. I need to graduate and clear my formal education time for other opportunities. To ensure graduation I received approval this week to switch from a thesis to an exam. Which I could have done all along, but I wanted to write the thesis...and make things as difficult as possible. Because I couldn't just write an 80 page paper. I prepared a 20 min visual presentation, did research to compile a bibliography of over 60 books and 35 articles, and outlined 15 potential chapters for my thesis. And that's before seriously absorbing what was in those books and articles. It wasn't a thesis. It was a dissertation or a life's work. I burnt out. And I've already done this once, I wrote almost 200 pages over something like 5 months last time, though most sections weren't directly connected, making it easier. Time to give myself a break this round. (Can you tell I'm still trying to justify it to myself a little? Despite the fact that in a few months it won't matter if I wrote a thesis or not.)

The exam will suit me better - a three hour exam on three themes, each involving multiple books and all the research I can do on each topic. It's doing research for three theses but only having to write for an hour each, rather than over 80 hours of thesis writing. It's the research and discovery part I enjoy most. And it's a huge relief. Yesterday I delivered all my paperwork to graduate studies. After running around campus all week, resisting my thesis advisor's sweet efforts to convince me to write the thesis because he's disappointed not to work with me on it and get read it, and spending a ridiculous amount of time sitting in hallways, I hope I've written my last check to the university. Burden lifted and I can now plan on graduating in May 100%. 

Goodbye university hallways!