From My Thesis Notes

So originally I had wanted to finish my thesis this week. Actually, let me rephrase that: originally, I had wanted to finish my thesis LAST YEAR, but, well, that didn't happen. Life got in the way, and finishing a thesis on culinary metaphors in Persius simply wasn't my priority...and one day, I will get over that and stop being ashamed about it. Ahem.

BUT! Back to the present. While I have not finished my thesis this week (I was basically completely out of commission on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday), I have made progress. And that is pretty exciting. Finally sitting down and forcing myself to write something - ANYTHING - has proven to be a brilliant decision (Well done, self. You're only a year late.). I'm pretty sure this thesis will not provide any groundbreaking insights, and as soon as it's done, it will probably sit on a bookshelf in the Bryn Mawr library and gather dust for the next century because WHO ON EARTH would ever read it (sidenote: clearly "motivational speaker" is not in my career future)? I certainly won't. BUT.  It will be done.  I will have my MA, and everyone will be jolly. Or something.

So while writing this week, I have been leafing through at least a hundred pages of typed notes (I know.  Ridiculous.  I am the least efficient paper-writer ever.) and rediscovering notes that I've taken over the past year on Persius, Roman satire, and culinary language in Latin. And this morning, sitting in the coffee shop armed with my laptop, hundreds of pages of notes, and an enormous cup of tea, I came across this gem (for those of you who care, it's about the prologue to Persius' Saturae):

• immediately rejects Hippocrene, Helicon, Parnassus, and Pirene both because they are the traditional sources of poetic inspiration and because they are Greek - in his collection of satires, Persius is going to write good old-fashioned ROMAN poetry. BOO YAH.

And then I laughed out loud. Because BOO YAH thesis, I will OWN YOU. Here we go.