Happy Birthday, Thesis!

Today is my thesis' first birthday -- yes, the six-month tormentor of my days and nights has turned one year old!  I know, normally people probably don't remember the exact dates of things like this, but I accept that I am an oddity.  Just for fun, here's what I wrote that day (April 23, 2011) after finishing those last few words:

I'm in a state of shock at the moment.  As of 10:00 am today, the horrible, monstrous, insidious, ill-formed offspring of my feeble mind, also known as my thesis, which has plagued me like a host of ten thousand camels tap-dancing on my shoulders in combat boots, is finally written.  I actually wrote a thesis.  I contributed something original, something on a topic which has not been covered, to the field of history.   

Forgive me while I faint. 

Okay, had to get that out of my system - the faint, not the shock.  No, I'm still in shock.  I honestly never thought I'd be able to do it.  I mean, have you ever considered what actually goes into writing a thesis?  It is no ordinary paper.  No reading a few books and then jotting down what you learned.  For my thesis, I read 62 books, countless journal articles, more than 1,000 pages worth of US foreign affairs cables, more than 2,000 pages of declassified OSS documents, several US presidential executive orders, and a couple dozen newspaper articles.  Oh, and I did that this semester . . . the same semester that I wrote the thesis.  That would be why I am just now finishing the creature. 

It's an odd sort of feeling, looking at the stack of pages that I created.  I'm not sure yet whether to tenderly regard it as my beloved child or as a grotesquely mutilated fetus that somehow survived to make it out of the womb.  I suppose I shall have to reserve judgment until my committee has reviewed the creature.

 The funny part is, even after a year, I still haven't fully figured out how I view my thesis.  I still regard it with half pride and half revulsion.  I am far enough removed from it to now be able to feel a glimmer of appreciation at my writing (I'm not meaning to boast; I just think I did a good job), but I still cringe when I suddenly think of things I should have done differently.  I guess this is evidence that I probably shouldn't go ahead and turn it into a book -- I don't think I'm cut out to be another Geoffrey Wawro.

Jasper "helps" me with research.