The pain begins on the 12th

I start school back up again on the 4th, but yesterday I received a message setting a date for the six of us senior's thesis meeting. We've been challenged to look at topics and to do some preliminary research on potential topics.

This is probably the toughest task of writing a non-topic based thesis paper. In some classes you're given a subject to write about.. Even if it is not your favorite topic, you can dive in because the topic is clear... At this junction I need to find that subject.. something I'm "passionate about" and truly want to know more about. In college, students are asked all the time to write on something in depth, but in reality, it's never truly in depth.. It's always just deep enough to dig in and learn a little extra fact on something your prof. touched on in his daily rants. They call them many things.. "Research papers, Reports, thesis papers, etc." but they are all usually universally 8-15 pages max (counting a bibliography) and usually only require 3 primary sources and maybe a glut of supporting websites. That is your in depthness.. that is your collage grad's example of "critical thinking" not something major or something requiring a comprehensive primary and secondary bibliography.. not something that is broken into chapters and into topics that actually explores a topic, answers a question comprehensively, or argues virtues of a real sticky conflict. No... this is not the roll students should be put in... You shave years off a young mind that would be better suited shaving in a corporate environment where that person is getting paid to think hard... *sigh* Yet this is where my B.A. ends. At this end of it is a giant brain fart and if I can get through the cloud then maybe somebody will have mercy and hand me a sheep skin for a "job well done." What on earth is worthy of such mental anguish? Perhaps this devilish requirement allows my college to retain some of its 'prestige.' I can see it now... The deans of Lewis and Clark are standing at the gates of the Harvard country club.. the gate keeper opens the gate and asks them to show what gauntlet they put their seniors through... Each year the deans return the requirements get stiffer.. Oh woe is me... My mind aches in anticipation.

Perhaps from now till when us six seniors meet, I'll sift through my other Blog looking for clues on what I was onto then.. Maybe there's something of hope there stuck between two random posts, something I wrote while in country, that peaked my interest. Till then I'll be in anguish trying to find a topic worth a significant amount of research, time, and effort that will satisfy the council of aristocrats in my department.

~J out