Nathan J. Barnes

I’ve looked at this dissertation so long that it’s one huge blur. Windows crashed for the billionth time – just as I was powering down last night. So my three backups are all corrupt, and I can’t make heads or tails out of what is “recovered.”

One day lost. Twelve hours of work.

Last Monday, I turned in a final draft of the dissertation to my committee. My professor expects only minor revisions, then I defend in late March – graduate in May.

The last half of the dissertation went very fast. I did have to do a lot of NT research for my exegesis of 1 Corinthians, but the history of women in philosophy was already done in chapters 1-4.

I have been revising my footnotes / bibliography as well as all my Greek/Latin work.

And looking for a job.

I turned in chapters 6 and 7 last Sunday evening. Chapters 1-5 are completely finished, this is the second draft of chapter 7, and the first of chapter 6. It’s awesome to have everything at least in draft form for the first time. It’s a whole dissertation. I’ve gone through my 1000+ footnotes and my huge bibliography every day this week as a kind of nervous tick. I really, really hope that I am close to the end. After 7 years in the program and 3 on the dissertation, I am ready to be done. I spent a lot of time on it but I have done good work.

I am now working on the final chapter of the dissertation.  It feels great to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m still in the odd beginnings of a chapter.  With any luck I’ll be done by Feb 1, revise for a month, and defend in April, graduate in May.  I’ve taken the scenic route – this is my seventh year.  But there are a few others who started with me who haven’t graduated yet.  That’s some comfort.

After the first of the year my wife and I are both going to start looking for jobs and plan where we want to live.  

Exciting stuff.