Dilemma

I have a problem on my hands that seems without solution.

In the first year of my graduate program, I was feeling uncharacteristically ambitious and, wooed by the prospect of working under the tutelage of a woman who is hands-down the most appealing academic (and possibly the most appealing human being) I have ever met, I decided that I would ask her to be my advisor in writing an optional Master's thesis.

Optional is the only word in that very long sentence that matters.

It translates to: I am an idiot.

So I took my shiny little self to meet with her, convinced her to take me on, and registered for her course on Qualitative Research Methods. The week before the course began I was stricken with a cough (perhaps you recall the rumple syrup?) that never ended. It made it impossible for me to complete the primary requirement of the rigorous class: writing the Research Precis. I told the teacher, my hero, about my plight and she seemed unfazed. Every year, she assured me, someone couldn't finish for whatever reason. I could simply take an incomplete and finish it sometime before I graduated. The 'I' grade would be replaced with whatever grade I received, with no penalty for having taken a sabbatical.

So I took that incomplete. I shoved the precis to the back of my mind. None of my Masters level cohorts were involved in research, so I just never had much occasion to think about it.

But I need the grade to graduate. In May.

I am, as you know, due to deliver a baby in less than seven weeks. This is great. What is not great is that it means that I should really get this grade taken care of before then. Which means I have to write a big thing.

Which, as it turns out, I hate doing.

I have spent some significant time this week trying to write the introduction, and every time I start I get Jello-brain even worse than my usual pregnant mental functioning. I start to fall asleep. I feel depressed. I just want it to go away.

I would almost go so far as to say that I can't write it, but I realize that this is probably just hormones talking.

I suggested to Ryan that I just ask my advisor what it would take to simply pass the class, and he looked horrified. Apparently he thinks that this would be a breach of integrity, which I am willing to consider, and also to accept at this point. My next idea was to pay someone to write it for me, or to hang out and write it with me, but then I remembered I don't have any money. I just want it to go away.

I will never try something ambitious again.

Anyone want a baby?