Dissertation Episode 1: The Crazy Menace

It is a dark time for the Republic. As the senate meets in my head to discuss possible solutions to my inability to write a dissertation successfully, a shadow looms over the proceedings. That shadow is an agent of the Dark Side, Darth Crazious.

Instead of a brilliant treatise on heterosexual romantic expectations of masculinity and femininity the Jedi seem to be producing a document more in line with the diary of a young, unstable teenage girl.

A teenage diary does not a dissertation make.

I have been caught off-guard by the biological attack leveled directly at my midi-chlorians. Darth Crazious has infected me with NGE.

NGE (not good enough) is a situational condition (it has been known in some cases to be genetic, but those are rare and often terminal) common in graduate students. It manifests itself slowly over time. Symptoms include: slowly disintegrating social life, elevated blood pressure, facial ticks, writer’s block, irritability, indigestion, identity crisis, and uncontrollable sobbing. One of the most common signs that a graduate student has come down with NGE is a persistent belief that she will be “found out” by her professors and colleagues, banished from the program, and forced to resume her job at Hardees.

You would think with an ego as healthy as mine I would be immune to NGE. Instead I find my foundation shaky, my confidence shot, and my ability to make an argument flagging. As the NGE destroys my midi-chlorians my connection to the force is severed leaving me unable to complete abstract thought, critically think or focus on anything besides my driving need to eat cake.

This is the test I have spent years preparing for. This is the momentous occasion when I thought I would face the Dark Side and scoff at its attempts to turn me. I have studied the writing process A LOT. Me and comp theory are close; I know how these things work. I imagine this must be what it feels like as a psychologist to realize you have a mental disorder. You can recognize it; you can diagnose it. You can even plan a treatment for it and clearly delineate the process by which healing will begin. But because it’s you, all you do instead is bash your head against the desk and wait for someone to find your catatonic body on the ground. Hopefully before you soil yourself.

I will not NOT graduate. I will not be a student forever. If I have to find a swamp, brave snakes, and crawl through a cave at the behest of Yoda I will be a Jedi. The force is strong with me. I will not be defeated by this NGE. I will not turn to the Dark Side because gosh darn it, I am smart enough, strong enough, and people like me!

(If you dare disagree with that statement I will put catfish bait in your vents.)

Just kidding.

Maybe.

I’m riding the crazy train right now. You don’t want to push me. It won’t be pretty.

Will Darth Crazious succeed in her nefarious plot to destroy the Jedi Order with NGE? Will the young Jedi Knight turn to anger, fear, and aggression to complete her dissertation? Will she perhaps throw herself into a pit of lava to end it all before it even begins?

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of “Dissertation”.



(See? Teenage Diary)