Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

I met with my preceptor this afternoon about the latest revision of my masters thesis. He thinks it is in pretty good shape, but he's all "argument, argument, argument." My advisor, on the other hand, is all "narrative, narrative, narrative." I would like to fall somewhere between the two and produce an excellent narrative with an implicit, but crystal clear, message. Something like you might find in The Atlantic Monthly (but not one of the cover stories, those are definitely explicitly argumentative). When I informed Preceptor that Advisor was pressuring me to foreground the narrative structure rather than the argument, Preceptor responded with, "Oh, well, okay!" And then five minutes later, said, "Yeah, I'm going to have to talk to Advisor. I don't know what the hell he means by that." Let me be clear that none of this is hostile talk, and I respect both Preceptor and Advisor immensely. However. Girl's got a thesis to finish. I think the two of them are going to have to duke it out while I finish this thing up. Countdown: rough draft due in three weeks, all polished and shiny.

* * *

current book: still Ricoeur's Time and Narrative, and still vol. 1
current music: Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
current socks: dark green with white sheep and red letters exclaiming, "BAA!" They arrived in the mail a few months ago from a former co-worker who had traveled to New Zealand in December. The note said, "New Zealand was wonderful… but so many sheep!"

south of the loop

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?