When I was pregnant with my son, it was a problem-free pregnancy and I didn't mind being the size of a house and having a baby jumping around inside me. But as I reached my due date, I started to want him out; not just because I was looking forward to motherhood, but because I was just sick of being pregnant. A week after my due date, I was REALLY sick of being pregnant and I just wanted the pregnancy to be over with. He finally arrived 10 days after the due date, and although I'd enjoyed pregnancy, I was so glad it was finally over with. (Of course, I soon realised that motherhood was a thousand times harder than pregnancy, but that's another story!)
I feel the same way now about my MA thesis as I did about pregnancy: it's been fun, but I want it over with. On the other hand, it feels like there's just not enough time to get it finished to a really good standard, even though I've been working on it for an eternity. I guess that's another parallel with pregnancy: no matter how much preparation you do, you're never quite ready for it.
My argument has generated far more interest than I expected it to; I thought people might be squeamish about talking about sexbots, but I should have credited people with more maturity. My work has been a talking point among my friends, family, and other academics, so of that I am grateful. At least my work is not so obscure that it's impossible to explain to the lay person, and every couple of weeks I see a sexbot related news article or something that someone sends me via email. I've pushed "not safe for work" to a whole new level, with people sending me all kinds of grisly stories.
I'm hopeful (but not expectant) that my work can be published in a journal. There's very little work on sexbots in the philosophical literature, so that is a point in my favour, but novelty shouldn't (and won't) be mistaken for quality, so I'm still going to have to produce something of a really high standard if I want it out there on Philpapers. Hopefully my MA thesis is a reasonable quality, but I'm so close to it I just can't tell any more. I've spotted a couple of holes in my argument but I'm not sure whether they are insurmountable failures or minor imperfections. They seem glaringly obvious to me because I've been embroiled in it for so long. Maybe others won't really notice them... or maybe they will. I suppose that there can't be many philosophy papers - if any - which present an argument so perfectly that no one has any criticisms of it. (Gettier's paper is the only one I can think of which comes anywhere close to universal acceptance.) So maybe a flawless argument is an impossible, unachievable goal to strive for.
Anyway, it's due in tomorrow, so there's not a lot I can do between now and then if my work is rubbish. I might have to resort to crossing my fingers until I get the grade back.
