Saturday, April 04, 2009

Why writing a dissertation is harder than having a baby?

I wish I had noted down the source when I saved this masterpiece a few years ago (before I got to the writing stage). Now that I am in the painful throes of trying to get the dissertation completed and submitted in a defendable format to my committee, I wholly empathise with this post. *sigh*
Back to the writing though for now....

WHY WRITING A DISSERTATION IS HARDER THAN HAVING A BABY

1. Three months before your due date, your doctor doesn't say, "I want you to
go back and redo the first trimester's work."
2. Unlike advisors, you can switch doctors without starting over.
3. Conceiving a baby is WAY more fun than conceiving a topic.
4. You know exactly how long pregnancy takes.
5. Friends and relatives don't question the worth of a baby.
6. You don't need to explain repeatedly to friends and family what it takes to make a baby and why you're not through yet.
7. Babies don't require proper footnoting or adherence to a style manual.
8. You can freely borrow other people's stuff if you're having a baby; if you're writing a dissertation, that's called plagiarism.
9. No one will complain that your baby is too similar to another one.
10. No matter how much trouble it was doing it, some people will gladly have more than one baby.