The situation: December 10th I printed out on nice paper for ~$150. They printed the entire 197-ish pages in black and white and about 30 pages in color separately. I went through each of 4 copies page-by-page pulling out the black and white figures and replacing it with the color figure. Then I went to a local binder and dropped of the 4 collated copies of my dissertation off to be bound for ~$150, two with the binding to be over sewn (and thus more sturdy) for me and two to be side sewn (less fancy and still fine) to be sent to my advisor and department. The receipt for this binding was necessary for my advisor to submit the paperwork to the graduate school stating that my requirements for my degree were complete (thus I would take it as a requirement of graduation, but whatever).
I emailed the binder yesterday to check in on the binding, what with the holidays and winter weather and all. Apparently the receipt they sent me December 19th in the mail also said the binding was done. Whoops. So I walk over, pick it up, it looks like real books, I bring home the over sewn and leave the side sewn at work (to be sent to my advisor). I flip through one over sewn copy and then notice that the other one is noticeably thinner and have a moment of panic. Only after flipping through the thinner copy, I notice all the pages are there in addition to about 6 randomly placed BLANK PAGES in the print out that I went through page-by-page. These 6 are not placed in any consistent manner - some are before figure pages, some are between text pages, so they are not related to me collating the figures.
I personally think that the weight of the paper for much of this copy is lighter than that I had it printed on as well. I head out today back to the binders and stop by the print place to ask them about the paper, only they think it is the same. Whatever. The guy gave me 24 and 32 lb paper to see the difference. Sure they are similar, but they feel as different as some of the pages of my bound dissertation?!
Then I head to the binders, on the way baffled that I am so worked up about this and slightly anxious. I seriously thought that I would pick up the bound copies send them off and be done with it, but noooo....More hassle to appease my miserable (to me and other grad students in the lab) advisor. I actually cried at the binders. The woman said that the first thing they do when they get a job is clamp and glue the books so that nothing will happen; I maintain that something HAD to have happened, but did not argue as I was already crying and she assured me they could just cut those pages out and you would never be able to see. I did not even bring up the weight of the paper thing. Oh, also, although I brought printed versions to be dropped off, I had previouslly given the binder an electronic version when I was evaluating my printing options. This means that if something had happened in the binding process, they would not have to contact me for a new copy.
Still there or care about the whole point of my rambling?
So back to the letting go thing. On the walk back to work from the binder I started composing this post in my head and titled it 'Letting go and hatred'. Hate is a strong word, but I think applicable in many cases. I do not like being angry, but I would rather be angry than crying in public for the umpteenth time about something grad-school related.
So is distancing yourself from, being done with, and generally avoiding something letting go?
How are you supposed to "deal with", and thus "let go", of something that will forever be a part of you? I do not mean in the sense that it has made you who you are, but in the sense that it is part of your professional training and people will always see that on your CV and the world of science is quite small...
Does "not thinking about" constitute letting go? Because I used to not think about school when I was still a student when I was home or out with friends or visiting family, but I was certainly not able to let go yet!
I feel like the situation is ridiculous. I can see people wondering why I got upset today. All I can say is don't knock it unless you or someone you know had an unpleasant graduate/PhD experience overall (and I mean basically for the period of grad school, not a couple unpleasant experiences here and there).
The woman at the bindery offered me some advice:
Grow another skin.I informed her I had the extra skin and this is how much grad school affected me on a personal level. And now, I am sending a mental F-you to her.
Off to my new "indoor cycling" class. I figure this must me the midwestern way of saying "spinning". It should be a good workout if I can focus this frustration.
4 comments:
Dude, I thought midwesterners were supposed to be nice. What's with the major 'tude on the binder lady? Eff her.
KHC, although her English is impeccable, I would hazard to guess it is not her native language. Thus we can blame it on her native culture, which must be in the tough love school of thought.
I know this post is more about letting go of your awful grad school experience, but since it is also about the process of getting your thesis bound, I thought I'd share this with you.
Maybe it will make you feel better, maybe it won't.
Every now and then, I admit to people that my table of contents is off by one page. In other words, if I list that chapter 2 starts on page 50, it really starts on 51 (or 49, I don't remember which direction it goes).
This was a product of the fact that I fought with Word about how to do weird page numbering within one document (I couldn't get the initial i, ii, iii, iv, etc to transition in to page 1, 2, etc). So, I gave up and made it several documents - turned them into pdfs and merged the pdfs together.
SOMEHOW I missed the mistake when I got the printed copy back. And this is after I'd double and triple-checked it.
At this point, I really don't give a flying fuck. But when I tell anyone in science, i.e. at my post-doc, they were horrified. Whatever. My theory is that A) no one is going to look at it anyway B) if they do look at it, maybe they will think they misremembered the page number as they are turning to chapter 2 or C) if they do catch it, maybe they will take pity on me.
Of course the alternative is that they will think I am a doofus. But honestly, the only people who will see it are people who knew me personally (I think). So, they will (hopefully) know that my attention to detail is usually spot on.
letting go is still something that I'm working through.
It gets better with time.
I'm sorry to hear that you ended up crying in public.
The woman sounds like a shit, IMO.
Thanks, Danielle! I do remind myself that I am not alone when it comes to the aggravations of grad school. Who knows if I'll ever look at my dissertation again... :-)
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