All over bar the shouting.

Having spent most of the last year sitting in front of my computer, curtains partially drawn to avoid screen glare, I emerge blinking from my book-stacked 'study'. I cannot believe that I have completed the bulk of the writing on my research MA, a textual commentary on the Greek text of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. The draft is sitting on my desk and, aside from polishing up the introduction, abstract and conclusion, it's all over bar the shouting.
Just as well really - the family holiday happens in ten days time and there's no chance that I'll take anything even remotely related to my thesis away with me......or will I? Because I am, I suspect, like many scholars in that I am loathe to let go of something that has occupied my daylight hours for a very long time. My thesis has become my fifth child, the silent reproachful one that sits and waits for me to pick it up. I have become very protective of it and want it to be the best that it can be. So if I read an entire book on a related topic and garner just one quote to add to my magnum opus, it's got to be worth it, hasn't it? Then why not read two? Why stop at two.......so many books so little time. Oh get over it, will you? Just pack the Dan Brown.