Student Thesis don't always workout!

Steinn muses on how sometimes a thesis (presumably undergrad?) magically works out in the end. Let me testify that sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes a student starts out great, does lots of stuff on his/her own, and then when it comes time to write it up at the end of senior year when the weather gets better, the student goes completely AWOL with only the errant email about how he/she has worked hard enough! I even had one email asking me to sign off on the thesis saying that she thought "it is pretty much done."