Annotations and conversations

I saw this on my old blog and think it needs reposting. dated March 31, 2008

I handed in my first thesis draft this morning. I never slack. or procrastinate too much when it comes to school but lately, ever since I was faced with the challenge of writing a thesis document, I have been. I have done everything…from staring at my room ceiling and noticing immense cracks that I have never seen before to going on neighborhood walks with my roomate (and if you know me, I never exercise).

The final thesis becomes more than a manifestation of the designer’s thoughts; of my thoughts. It becomes the designer. It becomes me. Bound, labeled yellow and bar coded, I will join my other classmates on the thesis rack at the Design Library. How frightening is this? I have been working on my thesis for a year now…well…in the end the final thesis becomes an accumulation of thoughts, interests and conversations exchanges carried on over my past two years of graduate school. Maybe even accumulation and negotiation of meaning based on events that happened over the past 24 years of my life. And if that is so, if the meaning of the work I am producing has been/is influenced by my undergraduate, graduate education, casual conversations I have had, and events that i have been part of all my life; if meaning and experiences are influenced by past experiences, what does that mean? How does anyone assign value to work which is not based on scientific numbers but partly personal?

The thought of having my work take such an official book format, accessible to many, frightens me. I am aware that my thesis will never read exactly the way I want it to other people because a lot of it is personal and meaning is never fixed. I should thus not fret but close my eyes and write my heart and mind out. I should not let myself get overly paranoid about whether I will be understood or not. I will pick the words, create the conditions that will support the overall understanding of the value of my thesis. Of course, the readers will construct their own meaning.