thesis turned in....

I turned in my (first draft of my) thesis to my advisor on Monday. I thought maybe after I turned it in, I'd feel a great rush of exhileration and a weight off my shoulders. I wish I had, but I didn't. Instead, I feel worried, and I realize all the theoretical and logical leaps I made that I didn't substantiate or explain or qualify enough. And all the places where I should have made a closer reading of the text--and the horrible, horrible chapter 3, which I just couldn't quite make myself focus on when I got back from Nigeria.

Then, too, I remember how everyone says that my advisor likes "polished" writing, and I am so incapable of producing that until I've gotten feedback on my content. Ideally, I would have liked to have gone to the Writing Centre and gone through the whole thing before turning it in. But it's already been three full years, and I did not want to have it drag out a whole 'nother semester while I "polished." But what I fear the worst is that my advisor who is brilliant and rigorous will destroy all of the major concepts upon which I have hung the thesis.

Worst case scenario: I'll have to completely re-write it.

Best case scenario: He'll say "Carmen, this is good. Improve chapter three in this specific way, tweak this concept in this specific way, add more examples here, and you are done." But I've never heard of him saying such a thing, except to one lucky duck grad student who presented a brilliant and polished paper at our Grad Colloquiem, and whom we are all in awe of now because our advisor praised him highly and didn't say anything negatively critical about his paper. It was a very good paper.

It's at times like these that I realize I shouldn't have made it quite so clear who I am on this blog. I should have masked the city and disguised my name more--and maybe not used pictures. But, really, I suppose my fears are no worse than any other graduate student who is in awe of their advisor. And if a prof. should happen to stumble across it... well, maybe they'll grow nostalic about their own days of angst and uncertainty--if it ever goes away...