giving birth

Writing a thesis is like bringing a foetus to term.

There is no process of ovum fertilisation though. It is asexual reproduction because you do it alone. There's the arduous search for the supervisor a.k.a. the gynaecologist, who performs routine checks on the health of the foetus, who is also not always around because gynaecologists are busy people, despite the falling fertility rates (few people doing thesis).

Then you have to feed the foetus. It grows bigger with reading, so you get perverse cravings to visit freezing libraries. It also grows bigger with data collection. You go around interviewing people, but as the foetus gets bigger it becomes a burden. Typing transcripts for long hours at a go gives people backaches. Sometimes the foetus threatens to dislodge itself from the uterine lining. That happens when the existential crisis strikes and you don't know why you are doing what you are doing and you want to rip up all your work. You threaten to abort.

Maybe the foetus eventually behaves (you finally figure out a framework to organise your data with). Maybe the foetus doesn't behave (writer's block).

But with time the foetus grows, and then the water bag bursts. (1 week before the deadline and you still have 8000 out of 12000 words unwritten). Eventually you give birth, with the tearing of hair and ripping of guts and bloody mess (the partners you dumped, the family members you snapped at, the social life you killed, the all-nighters you pulled).

I'm still at the asexual reproduction stage and this is what it looks like.