Tome Reader ©

Level 8: Recriminations and relief.

(Equipment: Ph.D., utterly foul temper and a fuse so short that even the cat thinks twice about asking for food)

  1. You may still love your subject and be looking forward to turning the thesis into a book. On the other hand, you may want to retire to a commune where the written word is forbidden. Both are perfectly reasonable responses.
  2. The people who ask "What are you going to do next?" don't realize what they are saying. Don't hit them. Offer a totally surreal answer, tell them the truth, or laugh, but don't hit them.
  3. Your family/partner/cat/dog will still love you, even if they are not sure who you are anymore. You may not be sure either.
  4. When you finally recover your health, you will feel differently about the whole experience.
  5. Supervision, in Tome ReaderTM, is an intense relationship (professional, although it may not have felt like that at times, especially if you both suffer from attacks by 'life' during the game) with a built-in break-up date. The break-up should be dignified; however, it is more likely that you will argue over custody of the coffee mugs. Once it is all finalized you may well turn the relationship into a professional link, happy memory or something else (commemorative mouse mat, perhaps?). That is up to you and the supervisor.
  6. For some time you will suffer from revenge fantasies. You may well feel other people made you suffer, and wish to punish them. I'm not going to debate the right and wrongs of this. Please do nothing.
  7. You may, in very, very rare circumstances, feel so aggrieved by your experience of Tome ReaderTM that you wish to make a formal complaint, take the world to a tribunal, or other. Give yourself a while (See no. 6, above) and go back through the minutes of those meetings and any other documentation you have gathered (see Level 2, no. 5). I did not come across anyone who had actually done this in the course of writing Tome ReaderTM, but good documentation is essential if you do go ahead.
  8. Getting a final copy bound and put in the library may be required before they will let you graduate (as well paying your library fines). This will annoy you enormously and may mean printing it out again, as spiral binding can't be re-used. Please don't cry.
  9. Acknowledgments are a kind of revenge.
  10. Do not take weapons to the graduation ceremony, but do go. It gives a sense of closure. You may even feel like celebrating what you have achieved.
  11. Reflect back on your experience. Ceremonially burning many of the early drafts etc. is fine if it makes you feel better. So is going dancing.
  12. Like all computer games there are secret levels to Tome ReaderTM. There is some guidance here to them, but I am sure that there are others to find. Other players will help you locate them.
  13. You will find uses for much of what you have done and experienced. No conscious work is ever wasted.
  14. You will gradually forget the worst parts of Tome ReaderTM and instead remember that you made some good friends and changed your life in all sorts of interesting (non-fatal) ways.
  15. To complete Tome ReaderTM you need to be persistent and determined, as well as being clever. In fact the first two are more important.
  16. You have done the impossible and nothing will ever feel quite the same again. If I'd told you it was impossible, would you have even started playing?
  17. If you know anyone else who is playing, or thinking of playing, Tome ReaderTM, don't dissuade them, but do keep an eye on them and if they show any signs of the above help them if you can. We are all in this together.