Simple, right?

I've got exactly a month until I have to hand in a copy of my dissertation to Graduate Studies. Freaking out, I wrote out a list of all the things I need to do in the next month. The list doesn't look all that bad. It's only got 6 bullets, and one of them is a note to pull a reference book out of the office and carry it around with me.

Sounds simple.

Except for that whole "write thesis" bullet. That one might be a bit of a chore, although I'm really not all that concerned about that part. I think I can write the thing in two weeks. That may sound ambitious, but the truth is that I have a lot of the writing done. My literature review, for example, is done. Intro is simple, conclusions will be clear. Content??? Uh, that's the problem. I do have things to write about but I don't have the whole story yet and if I need 2 weeks to write the damn thesis then I've only got two weeks and a bit to get all my result ducks in a row. Good luck to me, result duck hunter.

The other thing that is going to take F-O-R-E-V-E-R is the mathematical notation. I use a non-WYSIWYG* program to typeset all the math, which is definitely the way to go in my field. But it takes a while to code it and it's going to take especially long to unify all the notation from all the different articles. Ugh, that is the part I'm dreading.

*WYSIWYG = what you see is what you get. These are programs like Word*. I don't feel like explaining it past that, but if you have ever spent any time at all trying to enter an equation into equation editor - or worse, change an equation in equation editor, then you will appreciate a typesetting program. Steep learning curve but excellent usability once you figure everything out.

**I don't even HAVE Word on my computer.