Writing my Thesis

I had a meeting today. It was one of the usual meetings... you know, the kind where everybody talks and nobody listens. My adviser, nodding with his usual glazed-over glances and deciding certain things were amazing ideas and others are crap... Immediately assuming that our most recent paper was rejected because we did not pitch it as compiler theory...

After some banter, he looked at me and said: You need to start writing your thesis.

I'm sure the expression on my face noticeably changed. My eyes widened and my mouth drew back slightly in a smirk. I swallowed the lump in my throat, leaned back in my very comfortable desk chair and said "Yeah, I suppose I should get started on that."

He wants me to write section two of my thesis... not the sparkly, pitch that is section one (in which you try to convince the reader that your research really is valid and interesting). Section 2: The background material... the stuff that perhaps you didn't research directly, but is needed to understand the meat (sections three through infinity) of your thesis. Basically, all of the things I have read and done since September, condensed into one place; explained concisely and succinctly in black and white with as little bloodshed as possible.

Oh
My
God
.

I suppose it is a good idea. I have been striving towards being able to explain all of the prior research in this area well enough so that I can get ANYONE to understand it (even readers of this blog... if you exist). So, over the next month or so, I plan on writing SECTION TWO of my thesis, which feels incredibly pompous without a section one.

I hope to write some blog entries on the things I feel are necessary to this magical section two. These include:

-Synthetic Biology overview (kinda done)
-Simulating biochemistry (kinda done)
-Computing with biochemistry
-Rate independence
-Iterative/Clocked computation
-Technology mapping (depending on how far we get with it this semester)

Then again... If I were only doing my masters right now, writing section two would be like writing the entirety of my thesis. Either way, this will be beneficial to my general understanding and progress towards a degree.

*sigh* Onwards! Upwards! And not towards the guillotine!