Where Does This Piece of Writing End?

The Waiting Game

So by now most everybody within a 100-foot radius of me at any moment knows that I've started my dissertation. Proposal round three is with my director, and I'm sure I'll get it back after the Thanksgiving Holidays. For rounds one and two I was suspicious of any large white packet that came in the mail. Is this the one with the feedback? Is it a sweepstakes offer? Could it be quarterly losses from my 401(k)? Any of the above would have been depressing. I was waiting (am waiting still) to jump through this last hoop on my way to finishing my Ph.D. work. And it still feels like the beginning.

For starters, here are all the places in which any graduate school can waylay the best of educational travelers (or gatekeeping mechanisms, as they are):

1. Acceptance to any graduate program (GPA, letters of recommendation, work histories, other experience, writing samples);



2. Introductory courses/grades;



3. The "qualifying portfolio": a place in which, midway through coursework, students must put a portfolio together that's considered academically viable work;



4. Finishing coursework (both required and elective) at a steady pace with acceptable grades (mostly "A"s);



5. Getting somebody to chair your dissertation committee;



6. Getting the proposal passed;



7. Signing up other advisors/readers to be on your committee;



8. Passing the 3-chapter defense; and



9. Passing the final dissertation defense.

And so, three years in, I am only at step 6. I guess it feels like I've done more than that, but there is so much left to do. And where does this writing piece end (the theme, of course, of my dissertation)? Through rounds and rounds of submission, feedback, frustration, rewriting, and resubmission, I have gotten this far. And I guess that's pretty good. But this piece of writing will then blend and merge into my dissertation itself (mostly part of the prologue and chapter 1), continue to change, and not be anything at all like I thought it would be.

I am a stranger to my own written voice. I never sound on paper like I do in my head, or when I speak. It is as if there are three writers here, and each voice is distinct; yet I never know who will show up for the final version. I just hope that I don't have to wait too long to know whether I can take that next step. I mean, I know it's coming, but the waiting is excruciating.

And this reminds me: this is exactly what it feels like for my ENG 111 students to wait 8 weeks for a grade (I'll never do that again!).

Photo Courtesy the Yoga gurus.