i don’t want to talk about my thesis

(so i’m going to write about it instead, lol)

the fact of the matter is that i think about it all the time, the thesis. it’s stirring, or maybe a better word is brewing, constantly, in the back of my head. i agonize over how to even write about coffee shop signs. what aspects to focus on. i read every sign i can, looking for data. i take notes on my phone. i photograph so many thing. i drink a lot of coffee. i have coffee-fueled epiphanies that at times feel like revelations.

so honestly, when people ask me about the thesis, i really don’t want to talk about it. “how’s the thesis going?” is the most common question i get, which no offense, is such a non-question it kind of pisses me off. it feels like a nicety more than anything else and it doesn’t really make me want to talk more beyond saying “yeah, it’s going.”

because if we’re being honest, when people ask that, i also don’t think they want me to go into depth about what i’m reading at the moment, or what methods are interesting to me in this moment, or what signs i’ve been thinking about lately, or how there are gaps in my own research that i’m unsure how to fill, or how there are just these limitations to the study that i wish i could work on but don’t have the time or resources or skills. i think some people do want to hear that, but that’s a select few.

“when’s it due?” is another question, which i also hate, because i already feel stress about it, and being reminded of the deadline doesn’t help. it’s due in august (sort of), but i can extend that if i need to. there is a fee for extending, though. 735k vnd/month (~30 usd/month). i can extend up to two years (which would cost me 720 dollars total, which honestly, might be worth it, for the lack of stress). so there’s a deadline but like pretty much everything else in my program, the deadline isn’t that hard. and i don’t want to think about the deadline because when i think about it, i get stressed, and i think either i’m going to finish this way before august just to get this shit done or i’m going to extend this thing for two years because i don’t feel like doing this right now.

i get people are asking about the thesis from a place of good intent. this is a pretty big deal. it’s the culminating project for my ma program. i’ve been talking about my topic for the past year. i’ll still bring it up in conversation, but only on my own terms. sparingly. especially because once i start really talking about it, i can dominate a conversation in ways i don’t like, because of how much mental space the thing takes up for me and how excited i do feel about the topic.

part of my avoidance is the guilt i feel when i’m not working on it. writing this very post, it feels like i’m wasting energy that could be directed towards the thesis. reading books for fun, i have this thought that i should be reading more articles for my thesis. so when people ask me how it’s going, i feel judged (i know most people aren’t judging me), that they wonder how i’m even socializing with something to massive to do. i know i know i know. i’m projecting, but it still doesn’t make me want to be asked.

also, if i’m being totally honest, at this stage, i’m kind of over the whole thing. it’s a shame. i do like my project. i think it’s super interesting, pretty innovative, creative, unique, a lot of things i value in the work i create. but now the project just feels like a barrier to being done with what has been a pretty frustrating past year-and-a-half of school. i’m kind of questioning the whole structure of programs with a thesis requirement, where the real significant work happens when you’re already burnt out.

that’s part of why i’m so ready to be done. period. with school for the moment. maybe not forever. but for now. when i think about how free my life will be when i no longer have this big project looming on me. wow. i can’t wait. that’s motivation enough to finish, for that freedom. there are so many books i want to read for fun. so many things i want to learn. i want to be able to spend a sunday in bed doing nothing and not feel guilt eating away at me. i want to be free from the constraints of formal education.

or maybe to put it another way, i want to live in service of me and not in service of school.

i also doubt my academic credentials to do this thing, which creates a special type of writer’s block. my undergrad thesis is bad and online and has been downloaded more than 500 times and that is horrific to me. horrific. please don’t read it. i sometimes struggle when writing because i just don’t think i know enough to do this. which is true-not-true. there is certainly more to learn about vietnam and about coffee and about linguistic landscapes. there’s too much to learn. too many new articles every month to ever keep up.

this topic could be a lifetime of research, and that’s what i remind myself when i feel overwhelmed and underqualified. i remind myself that this is just an ma thesis. this is not a book. i’m not submitting this anywhere but my university. this might be a start to a bigger project, but that’s it. a start.

but it is very overwhelming. there’s literally so much to write about for my topic. i can think of so many projects on the topic. i don’t know which one to pick. i think an advisor would guide me, but i don’t really know my advisor, and i kind of get the impression that i’m supposed to just do this on my own.

then there’s the whole other source of writer’s block, which is i still wonder if i should even write about vietnam in an academic context (or any context, for that matter). in these substack posts, i feel somewhat okay writing about what i write about because i can make my position as clear as possible. i can ramble about my background and how that impacts my view. there’s some space for this in academic writing, and i have picked a topic that i think is okay for me to write about. but i have doubts about my position as a white american in vietnam writing about vietnam. what knowledge can i produce? by producing it, how can i do it in a way that is socially responsible? is that even possible?

but yeah, i feel this sense when thinking about the thesis that it’s too big of a project, that maybe i shouldn’t even be doing it, and that at this stage, i’m already burnt out and just want it finished as soon as possible, but then that leads me to feel bad, that i’m producing “bad” work, even though if i’m being honest with myself, the standard i hold my own work to is higher than the standard anyone i’ve ever met has ever held me to.

so yeah, the thesis. i think about it all the time, so if i don’t bring it up, it probably means i don’t want to talk about it. it’s not all bad. the best thing about the topic is that going to coffee shops is literally research. what a dream. a true dream. i do really like thinking about the topic. a lot. i’ve been having some great conversations with shop owners. but i’m also really tired. mentally tired. tired in ways that surprise me. i guess i thought that once i was finished with classes, my life would open up, and i’d have a lot more free time. i do have way more free time, but i also free more pressure than i did for other school projects.

yeah, i don’t really want to talk about my thesis. i appreciate the curiosity. i appreciate the concern. it’s going. that’s all you need to know, unless i decide to say more.

tks