the metaphors have mixed me

So I realized this morning, in terms of this degree, I'm actually in the home stretch.  The trouble is it's the sort of home stretch where, like, you've been running a marathon, and then there's hurdles in the last 400 meters (because it's considered the home stretch, isn't it, when the marathon comes into the stadium?).  Urgh.

Absolutely true, though.  Today is 2 March (oh my god OH MY GOD), and by the 20th or so of June, come hell or high water, or both, whether I am finished with this degree or not, it will be finished with me.  In the meantime, I have:

• 10 March:  syntax final.  This is in the form of three problem sets (done last spring) and a ~5,000-word essay (current word count: 1500).
  
• 28 April:  master's thesis (called dissertation) due.  It is to be 25,000 words, +/- 10%.  Current word count: 1500.
  
• 15 June-?:  exams.  Three of them, instead of four, because of the syntax final above, but three is plenty to prepare for.  Mine will be phonetics & phonology, morphology, and general linguistics.

But the thing is this:  it can't go on forever.  And then after this, there will be no more exams and no more one essay after another; just a great big paper and a defense, but, please, that's just one thing at a time.

1900 words, baby!

I could conceivably be something approximating halfway there.  Depending what the professor has to say, of course, when I send her this draft and make with the bambi eyes.  I'm working at the bar tonight (in an hour and a half, in fact), so I want to get as much of this done as possible before and after that, and then tomorrow, because tomorrow night is Hilary Feast, which, while I don't aim to get plastered (jesus, who can afford it?, calorie-wise), does include champagne, wine with each of three courses, and port, so, you know -- plus it will run late.  And because I haven't touched my thesis in ages and I have to meet with my supervisor some time next week to talk about my (ha) progress, so it would be good if I like remembered what we talked about last time.

So, yeah.  Syntax paper.  1900 words, getting toward the halfway mark.  But, Fox, I hear you cry, didn't you say 5000 words?  Yeah, I said ~5000, and I'd always thought it was a 5000w paper, with the usual +/- 10%, so, 4500-6500 words, but the professor said Yeah, that five thousand, it's more like a guideline -- which, hey, great!, I understand that to mean they want a thing that's like a twenty-page paper rather than a thing that's like a ten-page paper.  No problem.  And the handbook, which I looked up to see about submission procedure (it says nothing on the subject, so I'll go with the submission procedure it talks about for theses if I don't hear otherwise), says "not to exceed 5000 words".

Well, hell.  I've never gone over a word limit in my life.  So that won't be a problem.