Friday, May 09, 2003

Thesis terror
I thought I'd be able to relax once I had given the thesis over. But waiting to get the result is not much less stressful. A friend who recently had the message that her thesis had been accepted and that she will defend it August 29th, almost collapsed. The same numbness again. And then she will go through the same again when she defends the thesis. Hopefully she'll be able to really enjoy the dinner afterwards...

Why did I think of this right now? I just had a letter from the Faculty of Arts, University of Bergen. Nothing exiting to others, just a list of the members of the comittee who will asess my thesis, two Americans and a man from the department of Humanistic Informatics in Bergen (who is not my advisor). The letter confirmed that I am accepted to have my thesis considered. With the letter was a whole bunch of papers on rules, regulations and duties, my duties, those of the institute/department, and of the faculty administration. I was stupid enough to start reading, and all the provisions, considerations and rules have more or less paralysed me. Oddly enough the most reassuring reading in the whole stack of papers were the rules for how and when I might be permitted to submit the thesis again. There is a chance. I can rewrite and submit again. Rejection may not be the end of the world after all. It just feels that way.

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