An unoriginal grad-student lament

I have had the horrible realization that while I can write a paper of up to 20 pages, in French or English, with a week's notice, anything longer or more involved requires more than the amount more the pages would imply. The reward for finishing the 30-page prospectus (not so much in pages, more in the fact that it's a plan for a much-longer document whose academic name shall not be mentioned), or at least getting it to the point where all that's left is the bibliography, is a professional haircut, so I have open in one window during this photos of the look I covet. I feel getting the document to this point could happen any minute now, if it were not for the human body's insistence on being fed at regular intervals, and for me being the one person who studies at the NYU library without a smelly takeout container at the ready.

Oh, I could go on...