A student no more

As of last Friday, I am a free woman - I handed in my 15,000 word Masters dissertation!

Definitely a relief, as it had been hanging over me for so long. But also strange that it's all over so quickly... and that (pending my results) I will soon have a Masters degree (!!). Weird also to be ending in August - this will be the first September (since I was 4) that I will not be heading back to school.

For anyone who actually cares, I wrote about two novels (Saturday by Ian McEwan, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Basically, I was talking about 9/11, trauma, and the role of narrative in the grieving process. Following in the footsteps of Dissertation Haiku, I'll try and provide a poetic summary, because, as the writers of the blog explain:

"Dissertations are long and boring. By contrast, everybody likes haiku. So why not write your dissertation as a haiku?"

So, here goes:

Images no help
For understanding terror
Use stories instead

Not especially amusing but... 9/11 isn't such an amusing topic (another reason I'm happy not to be reading about it everyday).

Now what, you ask? My job search has yet to pan out so far, so I am still applying to various jobs, and hopefully going to do temp work in the meantime. Tomorrow, however, I'll be heading to Oban on the west coast, where my friends have rented a cottage for the week (I am joining them two days late since I had to work). Should be relaxing, and as long as we don't get torrential downpours the whole time, we're hoping to do some island hopping (Mull and Iona, for example). Then back to Edinburgh for one last weekend of the Fringe Festival! (More on the August festivals to come)