Thoughts on an overused simile

[quislibet]

I started to tell a friend of mine last night that I thought that writing my dissertation was like pulling teeth, but then I realized that the only teeth I've ever had pulled were my wisdom teeth, and for that I was put into a chemical stupor, and when I woke up, it was all done. So perhaps the problem is that writing my dissertation isn't like pulling teeth.

Comments

[phaidros.livejournal.com]

Well, don't forget -- the point of the expression is precisely that PULLING teeth is difficult, what with teeth really wanting to stay firmly attached to the jaw. (apologies for the anthropomorphic explanation, but I've been reading Aristotle's Physics)

Having teeth pulled, on the other hand, is usually quite easy. You just have to lie there and wait. And you get to be drugged.

So -- your dissertation, in the end, will feel that it was just like having its wisdom teeth extracted. It waited around, relaxing, until you did all the work and pulled it from the aither.

NB: A great many undergrads get this confused, and feel that taking the drugs will make the production of the written word easier. Again, it's the PAPER that passively awaits extraction (perhaps while it is drugged), but the writer must do the labor, and preferably will not be on any drugs at all. Maybe caffeine.

Re:

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

PULLING teeth is difficult

Nah, you just tie a string around it and slam an attached door! Easy.

As for caffeine, I'll just have to try not to be like Balzac (http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2001/coffee/010908.caffeine.html).

Re:

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

tie a string around it

The reader needs to supply an antecedent "the tooth."

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

So it's pretty clear that writing a dissertation is not at all like having your teeth pulled, but I'd hold off on judging whether writing a dissertation is like pulling teeth until you interview the poor schmuck who had to yank those things out of you.

This is another of those moments where I do not at all regret the fact that English has no middle voice.

This just in: I dreamt about you last night. You were asking for a prophecy on whether you and J. would win a baking contest. I was kind of distracted because I hadn't yet figured out what I was going to wear to work, and Owen only has one point in Soothsay anyway. But you eventually told me that it wasn't Owen's prophecy you wanted, it was mine, and furthermore, that you sort of hoped you didn't win the baking contest because you'd won too many in the past.

I believe we've already established that it's odd to dream about LJ friends that one hasn't met in person. But dreaming about their girlfriends whom one hasn't even LJ'd with? I'm getting too abstract even for myself.

Re:

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That is, indeed, odd.

J. has, to my knowledge, never entered a baking contest, although as a teen she had a little baked-goods business.

I made some peanut butter fudge yesterday, but it didn't involve any baking.

[jasonlizard.livejournal.com]

maybe you need to start drinking more?

[frederic.livejournal.com]

I actually enjoyed writing my thesis. Unlike science experiments, I knew that every hour I spent typing or scanning away was an hour closer to the end. With experiments, doing an experiment does not guarantee you an usable result. Plus, when I was writing, time just sort of floated passed me and it was a good feeling that I got that many hours of work done without keeping an eye on the clock.

Re:

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

I seem to have lost the ability I once had to write 25-page papers of respectable quality in an evening.

Possibly I burnt out those circuits my first semester in grad school, when I wrote four papers, from beginning research to finished printout, in three days.

Whatever the case, now I write a sentence, change it, look something up, and then check my e-mail, and eventually it's time to go to the Y or whatever.

[juniperus.livejournal.com]

I have given birth eithout an epidural. Twice.

As I approached my MA defense I thought that while I didn't need an epidural for 24 hours of back labor, I would have liked the equivalent for the committee-personality-issue and writing-block-hell that was my MA thesis.