laughing at others' pains

(To everyone who is in the final stage of their PhD "career". )

I know it's not the right thing to do, but what can I do about it? Actually, I am sharing the same pain. So, it's just comforting to see a lot of other people are in the same boat with me.

OK, here are some comments I stole from phdcomic.com which really cracked me up. I am sure that most of you won't even find it funny.

"I have a half of gigabyte of data to go over from two months ago. I'm not very motivated to look at it because it's probably worthless. There are negative results, positive results, and then there is my data - the impossible results. You really begin to feel you're beating a dead horse. Everything else in the world sounds interesting! Oh well. At least its not drop dead due until next spring. I'd like to be done by December. I guess the upside to not finishing is that I can still get into the online school library." ---by Lajoie

I am almost convinced that there is another me keeping posting things at that website. It's exactly my life.

"My data doesn't work. My analysis threatens to commit suicide on me every other day. My eyes hurt and my wrists hurt and I can't believe that normal people get to go to the beach already.......the thesis is just another requirement you need to pass, and it really doesn't have to be perfect. The property of "existence" is enough."---by Seagull

"But I'm having trouble with the summary, as I'm planning to come up with all of my results and structure in the 3 months after I've handed it in. I guess I'll just make some stuff up. Nothing could possibly go wrong, right?"---by evilmoose

"I've been in the final write up stage for the last two years! LOL. Other stuff has happened in my life (new baby) so I haven't just been procrastinating but I'm quite close. ...... All the interesting work is done (if it ever was interesting to begin with) and the write up is like crawling over broken glass."---by Slackenerny's Acolyte

I think I am posting this because my mind has gone a little bit insane after spending these days in the office trying to finish up the conference paper. It's just a conference paper!!!

Wait to see what will happen to me when I start to write my thesis...