I'm Hearing the Rocky Theme Behind This One

[Evangolis]

She found her master’s degree in a trash can
College student recovers only copy of thesis on stolen jump drive
 
By Susan Kinzie
The Washington Post
Updated: 1:04 a.m. ET Dec. 22, 2005

When Linda Cerniglia went back to school, it took her almost seven years to get through all the prerequisites, the labs, the research. And it took a thief just moments to grab her purse, with the only copy of her master's thesis stored on a tiny jump drive inside.

For anyone who's ever obsessed about a project but forgotten to back up the data, watched a computer screen fizzle just before a deadline or left crucial documents in a cab -- here is a story about backing up, and moving forward.

Grad school never came easily to Cerniglia, who majored in dance as part of the University of Maryland's Class of 1986, became a personal trainer and returned to the school in her forties for a master's degree in exercise physiology. She designed an experiment, analyzed CT scans, ran statistics, studied research and -- slowly -- began to write her thesis.

"It was so painful," she said. "I would rather go outside and dig a hole all day long than write."

She tried to trick herself into working on it, by going to a coffee shop or finding a sunny picnic table in the park. She could use a computer anywhere, because she had all the research on a jump drive, a tiny, portable memory-storage device about the size of a cigarette lighter.

Another student, Neil Doldo, told her to back up the data: He had lost his jump drive with his almost-finished thesis, spent three sickening days retracing his steps searching for it, until finally his dogs Zeus and Mela tired of it and left it on the floor near the dog bed.

Marc Rogers, Cerniglia's thesis adviser at U-Md., remembers everyone making carbon copies of their typewritten theses when he was a graduate student. People said, " 'Oh yeah, I had a backup copy. It was in my freezer in a little plastic bag because if the apartment burned down, it's still okay,' " he said.

"When you're writing one of these," Rogers said, "your whole existence depends on this thing."

One afternoon in September at Carderock Park, after doing some perfectionist tweaking of her almost-finished thesis, Cerniglia locked her things in the car. She went for a run along the C&O Canal, reveling in how great it felt to be almost done.

‘Million to one odds’
An hour or so later at her home in Bethesda, she realized her purse was gone. Her bank cards, driver's license, Social Security card, $1,000 worth of checks from clients -- she didn't care. But the jump drive was in the purse. And she still had not made a backup, even after hearing Doldo's "the dog ate my thesis" story.

She could hardly breathe. She felt sick. She raced to the police, who told her she would never find it; it could have been pawned, it could have been dropped, run over, flushed. "Million to one odds," said Officer Charles Whiteman of the U.S. Park Police. "It doesn't happen."

As the officer inspected her minivan that evening, she told him, "It's absolutely imperative that you do the best fingerprinting possible -- we must find this. We must find this ." He was nice, she said, but she knew what he was thinking: "This crazy broad is never going to see that thing again."

As the two of them called to cancel her credit cards, Cerniglia found that one had already been used, at 2:37 p.m. at a Target in Greenbelt. "This guy drove like a bat out of hell," she said; she had left the car at 2 p.m. and within 37 minutes he had pulled a tiny side window off its hinge, squeezed into the car, swiped the bag, driven more than 20 miles, found a $481.85 vacuum cleaner and paid for it. A few minutes later, another charge popped up. Another Target, another vacuum cleaner. Then another.

That night she couldn't sleep, tortured by visions of her lost jump drive. The next morning, Cerniglia began to think about what she would do if she were the thief. Get out of there fast, speed out on the Beltway, then dump the purse.

There was a chance, just a chance.

She was going to retrace his steps, go to every store he hit. She would talk to security guards, check lost-and-found, scour the parking lots.

So that day, she drove to Greenbelt, and as soon as she parked she saw a big trash bin behind a Wendy's, like a beacon. It was perfect. "It was open. It was hidden. I thought, 'That's it -- if it's going to be anywhere, it's going to be there.' "

She started pulling out broken-down boxes. She didn't care about the trash, even if it was greasy slop from a fast-food place. "No cockroach, no rat, no creature from the dark was going to keep me from my jump drive," she said. "Nothing is as bad as the thought of rewriting that thesis."

Jumping up and down in a trash can
She saw a flash of aqua cloth. Her heart pounded -- it looked like her workout pants. "Then I see my gym bag. I jumped into the dumpster. I'm throwing things out of the way. I see my driver's license."

And there, at the bottom, was her black leather purse. She unzipped it, reached in, and felt her fingers close around -- her jump drive.

People driving by stared: A 5-foot-4 43-year-old woman jumping up and down in a trash bin, screaming.

Cerniglia is done. She will get her master's degree today, with more than one copy of a thesis her adviser described as "exemplary."

The thief wasn't quite so smart, leaving fingerprints and showing up on store security cameras. Police say they know who took her purse. And they've got the tape to back it up.

[Sky]

found a $481.85 vacuum cleaner and paid for it. A few minutes later, another charge popped up. Another Target, another vacuum cleaner. Then another.

Heh. That story 'sucked'.

[schild]

found a $481.85 vacuum cleaner and paid for it. A few minutes later, another charge popped up. Another Target, another vacuum cleaner. Then another.

Heh. That story 'sucked'.

You are a son of a bitch.

[Ironwood]

It would have been a much funnier story if her thesis had been shite and she'd failed.

I'd have laughed anyway.

[schild]

Ya know - I used to work in Greenbelt (like, last year). I know this Wendy's. It's right in front of the most ghetto piece of shit mall you've ever seen. I mean, a terrible piece of shit. It has a Burlington Coat Factory, a Target, a piece of total shit movie theater, and a bunch of stores that sell stuff that you see on the street and wonder "where do people buy ugly shit like that?" There's a Bennigan's, McDonalds, and a couple other places near the Wendy's. Basically, all I'm saying is that there's probably a couple ten new purses in that dumpster every day. And people weren't wondering what was wrong with her, they were saying

"What's up with the crazy white bitch in the dumpster?"

Edit: Also, if someone is 43 - you don't call them a college student. You call them a 43 year old College Student.

[Merusk]

It would have been a much funnier story if her thesis had been shite and she'd failed.

I'd have laughed anyway.

For you, Ironwood:

This is a story related to me by one of my Architectural theory professors about when he was in school doing his Master's thesis work.  For those unfamiliar with the process, this involves picking a building, putting-together a building program based on research, writing a thesis paper about your project including the program and your design goals and philosophies.  After that you then design and draw a building based on this thesis and present the project to your professors at the end of the program. The whole thing takes two years at most schools. One for the thesis one for the project.

  Needless to say this is a very intense process and you invest a LOT of time and effort into it.  Being at a library from open until close when writing the thesis and then spending hours at a (then) typewriter compiling and writing or revising the thesis itself.  After that, you then spend days at a stretch locked in a Studio designing, revising, critiquing and re-designing your project.  Spending 100-130 hours a week in studio is not unheard of.  During the final 'crunch' weeks you're spending even more, usualy sleeping in the studio sustaining yourself on Cigarettes and coffee.  This habit tends to lead to cups of a nasty slurry of coffee,  ash and cigarette butts sitting around the studio.

Now, it's the night before the final presentation and one of my professor's classmates is inking his final drawings.  In walks his wife of two years, who grabs one of the cups, upends it on the drawing he's inking, smears it and loudly proclaims, "You're never home. I want a divorce," before storming out of the studio.

[Strazos]

Why the fuck would she use the laptop, and not store a fucking copy on it?

it's nice that she was able to recover her thesis, but there was really no need for all that hardship.

[Ironwood]

Heart-Rending Story.

Cheers mate, you rock.

Women.  Can't live with 'em and, in this country, there's apparently tricky laws about NOT stringing them up with piano wire.

[NiX]

Cheers mate, you rock.

Women.  Can't live with 'em and, in this country, there's apparently tricky laws about NOT stringing them up with piano wire.

They're out to get us.

I agree with Strazos though. Why the hell would you work on a laptop and not store a copy there AND on the jump drive? I don't get it. Am I missing something?

[Strazos]

You must be missing the point that she's a woman. They don't think of these things.

[Merusk]

Heart-Rending Story.

Cheers mate, you rock.

Glad to bring you some holiday cheer.