Writing a thesis

So, it turns out that writing a thesis is not a piece of cake. I naively thought that a few days of writing would result in a lovely little thesis, but hahaha...the joke was on me! My desk right now is scattered with hundreds of pages of fly and parkinson's disease literature that I have read or need to read, and four huge books filled with everything from fixative recipes to neuroanatomy of cholaminergic cell bodies to the history of parkinson's disease. It is sort of exciting to be mired in all of this crazy shit, but at the same time, not so fun. Here is a list of the most important things you need by your side when trying to write a thesis:

1. A good dictionary and thesaurus
2. Plenty of diet coke, preferably in an iv (or if its the morning, freshly ground coffee)
3. A nice selection of Swedish, Swiss, and organic chocolate
4. No-bake cookies (a chocolately oatmeal confection)
5. A bottle of ibuprofen
6. A pillow for taking 5 minute cat naps
7. An awesome Pandora radio station (this is the best invention since the iPod)
8. A healthy stack of trashy gossip magazines (my personal favorite is US Weekly) to prevent the mind from becoming too serious
9. A nice dosage of anti-anxiety medication to take the edge off of genetic perfectionism
10. Ten limber fingers