thesis blues

As the enormity of the task of writing a PhD thesis unfolds, my entire grad school career flashes in front of my eyes, and it feels a little sad to know that this interesting phase will be over in exactly two months now. When I look at my old notes and files, what particularly rankles is all the ideas that went nowhere, the unfinished calculations, the drafts that didn't get published because the results weren't so exciting or weren't fully understood, or the adviser didn't have time to review them.  I am also reminded of the many things that I didn't understand or didn't quite have the time to get around to learning as well as I should have liked to. Yet I have to cook up a few chapters of my thesis out of those odds and ends.  This will of course be promptly consigned to the dustbin of human intellectual endeavors.  What an effing sad thing to think at 5 am in the morning after a night that wasn't too productive.