Bugs in writing

So, you finished your masters … you feel smart and are proud of yourself for having had the determination and will power to do it? Well, enjoy the feeling while it lasts !! If you are going to write a dissertation as well, you will feel different … soon !!

All will start with the endless amount of books and papers you have to read. The more you read the more you will wonder if there is maybe one major publication you missed that could turn out to report the exact thing you are working on, making your work redundant and useless.

You will start asking yourself why am I doing this? what if somebody else already did this? Am I wasting my time? Will my dissertation even be readable, let alone contribute to the field? But most of all you will constantly ask: now, what was I doing?

If a fairy would come to you at this phase to grant you a wish, you would most likely wish for a life in a small village, far far away to herd sheep. What a beautiful, calm, relaxed way of life that would be …

dupre

You have to shake off those feelings and carry on. To get it over with will be your main motivation.

To ease the whole process of writing your dissertation you will need the following:

– A ‘good’ supervisor: S/he should be good as a person in general and also good in the field you are working on. You need someone you can trust, someone you can be sure that s/he will not let you down if some conflict of interest arise, someone who knows what is going on in the field in order to prevent you from doing redundant work, someone you cannot fool even if you managed to fool yourself (which is veeeeery easy) …

– A documentation policy: Make notes during every meeting with your supervisor and send them as an email afterwards to her/him. This will make sure that both of you were talking about the same thing and understood each other correctly. It will prevent misunderstandings regarding the content of the meetings, deadlines, scope of work, etc …

– At least one person who can listen to your ‘ occasional ‘ speeches about the thesis, your self pity and skepticism without smacking you on the head -> best is an anti-social brother who doesn’t talk much and can look at you as if he listens, even though he is somewhere else with his thoughts saving the world or something.

– A book like ‘Bugs in Writing’ by Lyn Dupre:  This book can guide you through the whole writing process, giving you strength during tough times with priceless advices like: “tell yourself that nobody ever reads dissertations anyway, that the dissertation requirement is just an archaic form of torture, a rite of passage”.

Best of luck mate!!

For the language lovers out there

Tim Ferriss recently tweeted about a site ( Etymologically Speaking ) with a list of some curious word origins. Here are some of my favourites that I found very interesting:

Quintessential
From the medieval Latin, “Quinta Essentia,” or “the Fifth Essence” — what we would now call, “The Fifth Element.” That which is quintessential is of the fifth element that would come after the four classical elements (earth, wind, rain, fire). The OED summarizes this original sense best, “The `fifth essence’ of ancient and medieval philosophy, supposed to be the substance of which the heavenly bodies were composed, and to be actually latent in all things, the extraction of it by distillation or other methods being one of the great objects of alchemy.”
“Quintessential” began life as an alchemical term, the Quinta Essentia, the fifth that arises from the four elements you mention in your etymology. The Fifth was thought to be the fabled Philosopher’s Stone which the alchemists sought, a Stone that could cure illness, extend life, and turn base metals into gold and silver. How to combine the four elements to make the Fifth was the great problem of alchemy (from the Arabic “al-kimiya”).

Robot
Robot comes from the Czech word “robot,” which means “worker.” In 1923, Karl Capek, a well-known, Czech, science-fiction writer at the time, wrote a futuristic thriller about a nightmarish scenario in which the machines have taken over (a la, the “Terminator”) and implanted circuitry in humans to make them into mindless zombies willing to serve them as workers or “robots.”

Schlaf (German) Sleep Originally meant, “the process of becoming tired”

Suede
Gants de Suede is French for “gloves of Sweden.” It was in Sweden that the first leather was buffed to a fine softness, and the French bought the gants de Suede. Suede now refers to the buffing process–not to any particular kind of leather.

Walnut Fig Dessert

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This recipe is originally from the Turkish blog “ Portakal Agaci ”. However, I adjusted it a little bit.

Ingredients:

… for the cake
3 eggs
3/4 cup of sugar
1 cup of grind walnuts
1 cup of flour
1/2 package baking powder (appr. 10 gram)
6-7 dried figs (steeped in warm water for 10 minutes and finely diced)

… for the syrup
550 ml warm water
50 ml milk
1/2 cup of sugar

… for the topping
40 gr cornstarch
6 tablespoons sugar
800 ml milk

Procedure

… for the cake
Beat eggs with sugar thoroughly. Add flour + baking powder + walnuts and mix well. Finally add the figs and mix again. Pour the batter in a baking pan and bake at 160 C.
Stab the cake with a fork in order to get little holes so that the syrup is being immersed better in the next step.

… for the syrup
Mix everything well and pour on the cake 5 minutes after the cake has been removed from the oven.

… for the topping
Mix cornstarch and 100 ml of the milk in a separate cup and set aside. Mix the sugar with the rest of the milk in a pan and bring it to a boil. Add the milk+cornstarch mixture and stir well till the mixture thickens (appr. 3 minutes). Remove from heat and pour over the cake 5 minutes after you poured the syrup on the cake.

Serve with cinnamon on top. Bon appetite !!