My Solumn Thesis Statement

In college, I had a history professor I couldn't bring myself to like. I was a history major, and therefore had many history professors, most of whom I really liked. But this one in particular was my least favorite. She taught Ancient Egypt, which you would think would make her super cool and relateable, but it was not so. I am not one to easily jump to the conclusion that someone dislikes me, but I really do believe this professor hated me and I have no idea why.

My suspicions of her dislike for me began with the first paper I wrote in her class, which she returned to me with the first paragraph circled and this comment: "Where is your thesis statemet? Rewrite."

Where is your thesis statement? Okay. I've been wrong before. I'll just rewrite my first paragraph to make it more clear. And so I did. And so she was still unsatisfied. 

I wrote another paper for her, and again, she circled my first paragraph. I marched up to her after class and said, "Ms. ---, I am sorry, but I do not understand why you keep telling me I don't have a thesis statement." She proceeded to tell me that a thesis is a sentence, or two, in which you told your reader what your paper was going to argue. I proceeded to tell her, as politely as I could, that I knew what a thesis was, and that I was merely confused because no other professor had ever told me I had this problem, and plus, I thought it was pretty clear what my paper was trying to argue.

I read her what I thought to be my thesis statement in that paragraph, and she said, "it's just not very clear." I asked her if I could come to her with my next paper, before it was due, to have my thesis approved by her before I turned it in. She said she could take a look at it, but she could not actually approve it, because that would give me an advantage over the other students. It would be like giving me a grade before it was graded. And apparently that was a cardinal sin. 

^Turning in my Senior History Thesis (my final paper, not a sentence), The Scottish Struggle for the Establishment of Presbyterian Church Government in a Time of Political Change, that allowed me to graduate.

Needless to say, she was the most unhelpful professor I had, and I never wrote a thesis statement that pleased her, even though my next one literally said, "in this paper I am going to argue...", and was approved by both of my rooommates at the time. It still wasn't good enough for her, and she gave me a C in the class. To this day I remain confused, but not as confused. Because I have learned that life is, indeed, sometimes unfair.

And anyway, how can I blame her? I am sure she was only projecting onto me the abuse she had received sometime in her past from a cranky old professor who beat her over the head with a two-by-four for not writing clear first paragraphs.

That brings me to this: I still think about this professor every once in a while without bitterness. Despite her intentions, she did teach me to take thesis statements very seriously. And I mean seriously. After all, it doesn't hurt to go over your argument one more time, and take time to figure out exactly what you are trying to say. 

I think about this blog's thesis statement all the time. I consider my "about me" my thesis statement, and I would be lying if I said its length and wordiness didn't bother me from time to time. But the truth is, sometimes the marketing part of blogging bothers me. You do have to brand yourself in the sense that you have to tell people who you are, so they know what they are getting. And I don't always like putting myself into a box. Figure out your niche, they tell you, or you will never be a successful blogger.

My niche is that I am an aspiring writer, whatever that means, who makes experiments in creativity publicly to slowly, but surely, write the thesis statement of my life--the one that sums everything up in a nice neat bow and makes sense of every thought I have ever thought. My blog's thesis is that I am working toward a thesis. 

And now is the part where I recognize the truth in my professor's over-the-top criticism: thesis statements are hard. And figuring out the statement that will summarize my life or simply why I write? Well, it is always changing. It is always being tweaked. But I think it is the process of working toward it that I enjoy most; the uncharted path from the present to the future with all of its tall grass and thorns, that I have grown to accept and even love. 

What is your life's thesis statement? What does your writing try to argue? If you think about it, thesis statements are a part of everything, really. We cannot escape them.