Must Finish Revisions

Well, the 27th is over and I've officially missed my first self-imposed deadline. I've been going at these revisions all day and I'm still not done. I did sidetrack myself a little earlier today looking at the latest job positions and thinking about possible postdocs. Today I had my first real moment when I thought I might actually go on the job market in September. There is a posting for a position at a very nice Southeast University that I would love to teach at. But, the call is for a social scientist in an area about as far as you can get from what I do. So immediate excitement was followed by immediate disappointment. I really think I'm going to end up waiting until the next hiring season--probably would be in my best interest for completing the dissertation this year anyways.

But back to the introduction that will never end. I keep finding holes to patch in Chapter One, but it feels a great deal like attempting to patch up one of Lil Kim's outfits--you're going to use so much fabric, you might as well buy a new outfit. It almost feels like I should start over with a new chapter, but I know that would only frustrate me more. So I'm forcing myself to focus on just two things for the rest of the night--strong transitions and topic sentences. I am tempted to add some political cartoons I found of Condoleezza Rice that further illustrate my point, but of course, that is just adding more work to this durn chapter. I need to finish what I've started so that I can get this thing off of my desk and out of sight for a while. I'm hungry for feedback on my progress--I mainly want to know if what I'm writing even sounds like a dissertation. I am still having issues with VOICE; I'm not even sure if what I've written so far sounds like me. My gut reaction--it doesn't. I need to read what I've written so far out loud, but I'm too lazy at the moment. Tomorrow.

For now, I AM going to finish these revisions before the sun comes up.