My Big Day

The last week leading up to today's deadline have been stressful. My dissertation weighed in at 17,350 words; 70 pages using 1.5 space for the six chapters and single space for the references. In the final days, I spent many hours checking and formatting 110 references, I rewrote my conclusion twice, wrote an abstract, created a table of contents, filled out three forms required by Queen's, etc etc. I never felt comfortable that I would meet the deadline because things do go wrong at the end. The deadline was 4 pm today. I turned it in at 2:50 and had a massage at 3 pm. I literally ran from where I parked my car to the printers (parking at Queen's is tough, so that was a long run). I proofed both copies (Queen's requires two soft-bound copies) then I ran to the law school, stopping to have my photo taken on the way. I look haggard because I feel haggard.

Am I happy with it? I'm happy I'm done, I can tell you that. My shoulders and neck have been in pain from too much time at the desk. I learned a lot about climate change, about energy politics, about UN politics, and about trade policies. But at the end of the day, I don't feel like an expert on anything--either from the year-long course or the thesis. I feel like I have a superficial knowledge of a lot of things I formerly knew nothing about (like the difference between civil law and common law and the way U.N. treaties work). I learned how to use reify in a sentence:
"Together, energy companies and economists have reified the concept of an energy cornucopia that can enable continual economic growth, without regard for environmental consequences."
How about that for some master's thesis BS?

The $64,000 question is what am I going to do with my shiny new degree? I shoehorned the thesis into 1.5 months out of the 3.5 months available, due to other commitments in June and July. So I haven't had time to think about the future. My immediate future is to get away for a few days (I'm writing this from a hotel bed in County Donegal). Then David and I go to Greece for a week. Then I spend three weeks writing investment copy for a freelance assignment. So applying for jobs isn't in my immediate future.

After my oh-so-very-necessary massage, I walked downtown slowly, enjoying the beautiful day. I stopped at Belfast City Hall to take some photos:

The statue above memorialises those who died in the Boer War of 1899-1902, in which the U.K. and white South Africans were fighting over who would control gold mines. The next memorial was to 22 Belfast men who died on the Titanic.

So then I did a very decadent thing: I sat in a lovely hotel and had a gin and tonic and spinach and artichoke dip. I had an hour to kill until I met 10 fellow students for dinner at a popular buffet restaurant (code for quantity over quality). It was great to see my fellow LLM students and we thoroughly enjoyed whining about all we'd been through. Some of them have training jobs with law firms (they all did law undergrad) and some are going on to do doctorates. One is going to Japan to teach English. One of them turned her thesis in at 4:01 and it wasn't bound--she vomited on the way to the law school after dealing with a printer that jammed and having problems with her student card, which you use to pay for printing. Her experience was my worst nightmare. That is why I had a commercial printer print and bind my copies.

I enjoyed my freedom, post 2:50 p.m., and I'm planning to indulge that feeling for a few weeks before I start work on the $64,000 question.
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