Notes on a Thesis

In an introduction to Dante’s Inferno, T.S. Eliot noted that hell was a place where nothing connects with nothing.  In an email to her thesis advisor, Caira suggested that Dante forgot to include the level of hell where lost souls are forced to relive their 20s in graduate school over and over again, without learning any of the lessons.

A year ago, I’d just purchased a plane ticket to Rio de Janeiro to conduct fieldwork on the developments taking place in preparation for the World Cup and Olympics.  I had a rough idea of how I wanted to spend my two months in the city, and what I hoped to learn, as well as the general belief it would guide me towards the next…something.  The trip developed in conjunction with a class at NYU, and the summer “in the field” was meant to do all the sorts of things to one’s perspective that being in the field does.  And it did.  I went under the pretense of having an internship, but spent most of my time just getting around from place to place, talking to anyone willing to impart another name, another opinion, another something (that word again!) that brought me closer to the notion of what it felt like I was looking for.  I can romanticize a bit now, and think in larger frames of say, time spent on the beach, valuable contacts made, and how fundamentally helpful it was that I saw for myself what was actually happening on the ground, despite the profound absence of research methodology, the ability to speak Portuguese, an actual argument for my thesis…the list goes on, unfortunately.  And still I relentlessly pursued conversations, meetings, names of people who might know a little bit more than the person recommending them.  I wanted to make something new of a seemingly incongruous list of facts and opinions and theories.

The I came back to New York, and suddenly realized what I’d signed up to do.  And what followed was not pleasant.

I developed peculiar little behaviors while writing my thesis.  I used the F word in casual conversation with my Mother.   I used charming phrases like “over my rotting corpse” in response to whether I planned to to “get that pHD.”   (But aren’t you glad you asked?)  Sometimes the highlight of my day was the walk between the library and my apartment, and not skipping to the next song on shuffle when One Direction came on, because I had earned the right to indulge in neo boy band jams.  I cried.

Some weeks after I wrote that whiny email to my advisor, I was declined a job from a political non-profit institution for post graduate employment.  A peculiar thing happened when I read the “it’s not us, it’s you” rejection letter. I smiled.  I sat down on a bench outside and basked in the sheer certainty of one thing: I was completely happy and liberated by this sudden knowing, which ironically created many more question marks about my near future.  But I didn’t care… I was downright giddy. Flat out relieved.  I’d been a mess after the interview, plagued by the mediocrity I associated with my internship experience the year prior.  I knew rationally it was a good opportunity. But I didn’t want it.  And in the end it wasn’t even my decision to make.

And then a few days ago, I submitted a copy of my thesis to NYU’s archives library.  I bound it up, handed it in, and exited the building as casually as I’d done over the course of the last two years, smiling at the receptionist on the way out.  Grad school was strangely, and quietly, over.   As uncomfortable a process as writing that blasted thesis was, those hours in the library were something to clutch on to, somewhere to go and squint in front of the computer screen.  Amidst all the other pending uncertainties, I began to take smaller, less painful breaths in the familiarity of writing- of getting the words out, of staring into space, and in remembering that somewhere nearby, a fellow classmate was doing exactly the same thing. Two days before I submitted my final draft, I spent some minutes on my couch thinking, ” Was it so bad? Was it so terrible?” It’s just some words on paper.  Will I think back on the last few months, and realize that there was nothing so awful about it, really- that it was all in my head? That more than anything, it was an opportunity embroiled in passion and writing and exploration?  It took me to Brazil and to London and finally to my couch, to contemplate and sit in silence, the night before I’ll hold a Masters diploma.

A fellow classmate and I had a conversation last week about what comes next, and what we learned in graduate school.  For months and maybe years, I thrived on ticking boxes and making plans.  My thesis and the work that went into it played a significant role in those “checks.”  With all the effort, with all the extraordinary *people that helped me get there, with all the tears and sweat and pain and perhaps the teensiest part of my soul it took to write it, I still don’t know precisely what’s going to happen next, apart from donning an unflattering purple robe and taking great pride in the piece of paper with my name and degree on it.  What I learned in graduate school, above all, is how much I don’t know.  Must try to remember that.  Stay tuned.

* Those extraordinary people being my Mom, my sister Channon, Lindsey Waldron, Connie Dineen, Basia Bubel, Vilson Fejzullau, Zac Koffler, Jenn Verwey, Carol Capelle, Katarzyna Szutkowski, Kyle Hepp, Sean Rameswaram, Nick Zigler, Emily Johnson, Scott Macdonald, Mary Jane Frisbee, Vic Ziminsky, Jessi Slayden, Marisa Louie, Katie Walter, Robert Doty, Catherine Capelle- Dickman, Dina Asma, Janet Alford, Mary Beth Asma, Lauren Robertson, Emily Williams Cornejo, Michael Kimpel, Elena Kissel, Jay Hollis, Allie Hastings, Umang Khetan, Leimer Tejeda, Natalia Battaglia, Lauren Sherwin, Gardner Tripp, Jean Cappello, Lauren Hall, Kirk Bowman, Dave Korman, Rapha Daros, Micaela Browning, and Professors Jens Rudbeck, Thomas Hill, and Christopher Gaffney.