those who travel 100 miles believe that 90 miles is only halfway

A Japanese saying.
Right now, out of 100 I'm at about 60 and feel like I'm at 20.
Anyhow, the Japanese are insightful when it comes to work...

I have finished my Djuna section of my second chapter. My close-reading is, of course, longer than I first expected. I was afraid at first that I wouldn't have enough written. Knowing myself as I should by now, I should know that my problem will most likely be a thesis that will end up being 30 pages longer than it should be and then I'll have to truncate and edit away for an extra 2 weeks. Knock on wood. I have 6 pages on Djuna and, rough draft, only 3 on Anne. My work for today is to revise Anne, spiff up the intro to her section, add abjection everywhere to focus my argument and show how every paragraph relates to abjection and write a conclusion to the chapter. Then start chapter 3.

I told Ben that I wanted 2, 3 and 4 to be done by the end of next week. He replied that if I succeed, I'm really good.

My head hurts again. And my right wrist is starting to hurt like it did when I finished my CD-Rom project at the end of my undergrad. The pains of school! :)

As I was working on Djuna yesterday, I kept hearing Lianne's voice in my head saying, "How does this relate to abjection? Where is your thesis in each paragraph? Relate this to your thesis. How does this paragraph focus on abjection?" I think she has succeeded in haunting me, but in a good way, of course. I realize as I write that even if my sentences sound more and more English, my early education has me structure texts in a very French way. In French, you are not expected to re-write your thesis in every paragraph. An argument implies your thesis. And where you put that thesis-sentence is also rather specific. If it's at the end of the paragraph it's like it's appended, so not an integral part of the argument. So many little things... So as Andrew helps me with the English language, enlightening me to the fact that "such as" is rather French and that "as is" is more English ("Dam 'tel que'! How did that get in there?"), Lianne is helping me with the English narrative of essay writing. I always felt lucky to have two directors that complement each other so well, and as I go I keep learning how well they complement each other.