Got it!

Received an email from Yovnne this morning, with an exciting title: Illaria got the degree!

I first met Illaria at a conference in Belfast. Three of us, Illaria, Kostas, and I, sneaked out of the conference to have a walk around that beautiful old city of Belfast. It later proved to be a very stupid decision, as we missed the keynote speech of Terry Eagleton ;-((. Of course at that time we did not know, and we actually had a great time out in the city. We watched the Titanic show in Belfast city center, and took pictures like tourists everywhere. Then we sit in the sunshine in a Starbuck, and I asked THE really stupid question: Illaria, what is your research subject?
Illaria tried to explain, but obviously I did not have any idea about her topic. So she took out a huge (I mean really really HUGE) copy of her thesis out of her bag. It was nicey bound, with a proper cover page saying: as a partially fulfilment of a PhD degree, thesis submitted in April 2006. I was so happy and before a ‘congregations’ burst out, she added very calmly: “Don’t be too excited——it was rejected, and I was told to resturcture.”
I still remember at that instant, tears just welled up in my eyes. I could not imagine how I would handle this if it were to happen to me, in one or two years time.
Both Illaria and Kostas looked at me sympathetically and said: “Calm down girl, calm down. This is part of your life as a research student. Your writings get rejected, rejected and rejected; you just rewrite, rewrite and rewrite. Don’t you feel bad about it; this is your choice, isn’t it?”

It’s great to know she finally made it! Even today I can still remember her smile that afternoon, calm and confident, in front of the huge ‘rejected’ copy of her thesis.
Congratulations, Illaria! And thank you for showing me what do to if my writing were to go wrong: I will just rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite.

Xiu Wang : 08 Feb 2007 01:53 |  Tags: Study |  Comments (0) |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem