Thesis Struggles
I finally handed in my thesis. For a while there, I wasn't sure that it was going to happen. I was not in a good headspace. I doubted my every move and I was procrastinating to a harmful degree, which meant that I ended up writing most of my part of the thesis the final week before hand in. Naturally, I took to my keyboard to slam out my feelings in a weak attempt to hype myself up and get the gates flowing to just write something. It proved difficult but it was the right choice.
Just over a week before the deadline, I stumbled across the quote below on tumblr and it stuck with me. I am always someone who have been a fan of just taking to the keyboard and seeing what happens. I don't suffer from writer's block in the sense that I can never get words down. I can ramble, especially when I type, until the day I die. But still academic writing has always been a little bit of a different struggle. It is all about proper language and having backing for your every claim. You can almost never just say something, even if you believe it to be right. You have to prove that people before you have said it or at the very least you have to carefully and painfully document that you have findings to back your claims. It makes sense. It's a way to ensure that people don't just sprout nonsense but as someone who has always thrived with the idea that I can make entire worlds out of nothing but words on a page, it can be daunting - even more so when I have no guideline but I am still expected to adhere to all the academic rules that have been poured into my head for six years.
As a way to help kick myself into actually writing and not just wilfully ignoring my computer and the thousand tabs and documents I had open, I started to write journal entries. I used to do it every night, just for myself, but it has gone out of the window this year (along with a lot of my stability, if I dare be so honest). I might bring it back because there is something cathartic about just ranting my heart out. As such, I didn't want the entries to just go to waste because they are a snapshot in time, a time capsule of my emotions while struggling to finish the thesis. Still, some of them are very long and incoherent, so I have narrowed it down to just showing fragments that probably still reveal a lot of my mental state. Hence why it has a whole bucketload of swear words. I was pretty horrible to myself, especially in the early entries but it thankfully gets better as I got more and more work done.
Thursday, 8th of August 2019, at university, 6 PM: Okay. Writing. That’s a thing I do. I do it so much outside of academics that I almost feel like I forget what it’s like to write “proper” academic shit. So I’ve got to warm up. Warming up means ranting. It’s the passage of nature, or at least the passage of me. It’s currently 6 PM in the evening and I’ve not been writing much these past days and we have a meeting to evaluate how far we are by tomorrow, Friday, so like a responsible student (and adult) I’ve left myself plenty of time to write my parts. In the distance, you can hear someone is cackling. Shut up otherworldly entity. I can do this. My hands were made to fly across the keyboard and I will write until I’m blue in the face. We’ll see if the quality and appropriateness of whatever I produce but I will put words on the screen and I won’t even let myself stop me. Stubborn me has been called upon and she’s a force to be reckoned with. Just fucking watch.
Sunday, 25th of August, at the family house, 2 PM: This is bullshit, right? What the fuck am I doing with my life? I feel unable to tackle the task in front of me but so far it’s just some vague shit that I don’t have any actual idea about. I haven’t fucking tried. You can’t fail if you don’t try. You can just float through the world and not exist. And that’s not healthy to want to feel that or to even accept that as okay. I’m done floating. I can’t float anymore. There are just three weeks before a complete thesis has to be handed in and I have written about 4 usable pages out of the roughly 60 pages that should be my half of the assignment. That’s so little. It’s miniscule. What the fuck. My brain keeps trying to spin me some bullshit about optimal conditions and motivation but I know my writing modes and I also know that I sometimes have to push even when I don’t want to. I told my partner that I had part of the methodology down and that was a downright lie. I don’t care if my anxiety is spiking and I’m spiralling out of control. It’s just a few weeks, you know? I can write. I can sit down and write this, this processing bullshit, and that’s just to get me warmed up. Get me ready. It’s a big task. No one is going to deny that but it’s also just an assignment. I’ve done so many of those and I have been doing quite well, despite whatever treacherous shit my brain is telling me. It’s just a fucking assignment.
Friday, 6th of September 2019, at the family house, 11 AM: I don’t feel like I can do this. I haven’t been writing all week. I’m lost. Tired before I even start and I’m just terrified. I feel like shaking. I feel like a panic attack is breathing down my neck. I’m letting everyone down, my thesis partner most of all and I hate it. I don’t feel equipped for this at all. I feel like a fraud, imposter syndrome turned up to a 110. It’s horrible. I’ve written maybe five pages out of what I have to write? It’s horrible? I don’t know what’s going on. I want to lie, I want to pull myself apart. I don’t think that I can do this when I sit down to write. I feel the sins crawling on my back tenfold. Like what the actual fuck. I feel trapped and stupid and so angry all the fucking time. But will it help to postpone it? No. I’ve learned that lesson. It doesn’t help. It just gives me more time to procrastinate. More time to have this heavy thundercloud over my head, pouring litre after litre of water into my already soaked and shaking being. Like what the actual fuck? It’s so horrible. I don’t feel like I can do it but Mum was right with her peptalk this morning. It’s really not a choice, you know? I have to finish it. I’m shaking and I do really feel like that panic attack is not that far away. Why am I so unstable? I haven’t even finished the things I promised to have done like two weeks ago? Things I said that I had gotten done but I didn’t because I’m a liar and a fraud and a despicable human being. Wow, my internal monologue is very harsh today. It might not be entirely undeserving but it’s not that bad. It can’t be. Yes, I fucked up. I fuck up all the time. That’s nothing new. Yes, time is running out, much faster than I would like it to but who the fuck cares about that? Time is a social construct and we might have to adhere to it but it is still arbitrary to some extent. I think so. Who the fuck knows anymore? I don’t know shit but I do know bullshit, right? That’s what I’m indirectly saying here. I can bullshit with the best of them. So I’ll bullshit. I’ll pretend and keep my head high and try not to get bogged down by everything. It’s too late to change the course anyway so we have little choice but to try to weather the thrashing sea. Just look at my colourful language here. If anything, it’s the one thing that no one can take away from me. I’m a writer. An actual legitimate writer, no matter if I’m pushing my fingers into the keys to express everything in my head that won’t come out properly through my mouth or if I’m writing fictional stories that counts thousands and thousands of words that bring people emotions when they read them or if I’m writing an academic assignment. My issue is that I don’t trust this project, not fully. It's just for ten days. Ten days is no time at all and it’s inherently terrifying to struggle this much. It’s partly being tired of being a student, partly the fear of the uncertain future that awaits me on the other side of the hand-in but it’s also an innate want to care but being unable to. But if I want to care so much, I have to get invested. I have to pour my heart out into it. It’s the only way. Fuck.
Friday, 6th of September, at university, 2 PM: Well, this is the warm up write here. My thesis partner is stressed on my behalf. Not ideal at all. Fuck. This is bad but there is really nothing I can do about it except sit my butt down and write. I mean I’m sitting right now and I’m writing but that doesn’t really count. I continue to be an idiot but my time is up now. Ten pages a day? I mean, it’s quite a lot but you know. I can try. I will try. Fuck all of this. Shit, I’m just still scared but there is literally nothing I can do about this. It’s so fucked up. Well, what can you do, you know? It’s what it is. I’m a little baffled and scared but it’s the way of life. I did this to myself. So now I’ll strap down and just write like my life depends on it. It kind of does to be honest. It’s really unnerving. Like literally what the actual fuck? I don’t know. Breathing is hard at the moment. Anxiety is still crawling on my skin. It’ll be the norm for a while. That’s not exactly okay but it’s bearable. It is despite how much I will undoubtedly whine about it. Which will be a lot. But for now, enough with the whining and back to writing.
Sunday, 8th of September 2019, at the family house, 9 PM: I am quickly and inevitably running out of time. Still, I’m caught in this bizarre half-panicked but not really panicked state? It’s utterly bizarre and I think it’s a way for my body trying to protect itself because I will otherwise get entirely overwhelmed and I’m already doubting everything. Despite everything I still only have like ten pages? I don’t know how any of that works out to be real life? It’s so bizarre and I don’t know how to explain it. I’m just baffled and a little hurt about the whole thing and I’m pulling back from everything and everyone and I don’t feel like I know how to do this. Or rather I feel like I might know how to do this, just a little but it so many tasks and so much effort and I don’t actually want to put it into it. I think my mind still has some fucked up perspective of this being glorious and not an absolute shit storm of lack of academia. I don’t know. It feels a little like that. Am I even a university student anymore? I don’t feel like one. Not at all. It’s bullshit. I’m back to typing that, huh? Well, whatever. I can type bullshit. Let me bullshit my way through this whole thing. I have a lot of notes to get down on the real penultimate question, and a lot of points. Can I support them with our theories? We will fucking see, mate but for now I’ll just write whatever the hell I want. Nobody can stop me. FUck!
Monday, 9th of September 2019, at the family house, 11 AM: Well, here I am again. Venting to my document. I managed to write out a theory last night and I’m just about to start working on putting down the theory that I have been actively avoiding all of this time. Fun, right? Hmm.. I’m not so sure about that. I believe that my thesis partner is still freaking out. I am surprisingly not, despite only having like 20 pages to my name at the moment. It’s fun. But it’s also a bit ridiculous because we talked about doing 60 pages each but it doesn’t really work like that, you know? It’s not binary like that. We have models and final touches, an abstract to write, the conclusion, so much stuff is just still out there. I’ve been a horrible thesis partner so far but it’s not the time to focus on that right now. I just have to put my hands to the keyboard again. I am hopeful that I will be at a more respectable page number by tomorrow. It will be okay. We still have a bit of time to edit, even with that. We will get it done. Again, the pages are not as damn important as the content. I’m happy with what I’ve written so far, so that’s good. We will make it work. I fucking swear.
Monday, 9th of September 2019, at the family house, 10 PM: Well, it’s only natural that this document has just entirely turned into incoherent rambles where I argue about the thesis. I didn’t manage to get everything done entirely according to plan. I guess what I should be focusing on is the fact that I do actually accomplish stuff after the dillydallying, even if it takes a while. Mum read through my work so far she said that it seemed sensible. She has nothing to say about correcting my language, which is not unsurprising but I always feel a little warm whenever she compliments my English. It’s my creative language and I’m so proud of all that I have accomplished with it. Still, I can’t help but feel a bit of tightness in my chest because I only have what 20 pages at the moment? I just checked. 22 pages in characters. It’s so very little. I might like the words that I have put down but seriously. It’s still a long way to go. It’s my own fault for waiting to the last minute. I don’t have anymore time. It’s just this, a ball of stress but a manageable one at least by now. It’s almost laughable how short academic pages are and yet I’m struggling a little with reaching the goals but it’s not because I don’t think I can write it. It’s because I’m worried that it won’t be good enough or that I’ll mess up. I don’t know where this insecurity has come from but it’s not welcome here. I hate it. I want to kindly evict it because it’s an unwelcome guest in my brain and it’s making my poor anxious side act up. The worry that I won’t be able to reach the goal is still lingering but I am more determined than ever before with each passing day.
Tuesday, 10th of September 2019, at the family house, 9 AM: My hands are slightly trembling this morning. Probably not the best thing. I did just eat some food and drink some more water in an attempt to steel myself for the day. It’s set to be another long one. As will every day until Monday but that’s okay. I’m making careful progress. I need to get more pages down, and I need to figure out any and all potential questions that we might have for our supervisor because it’s the final time that we’ll see him before hand-in. Fuck. This is really something, you know. I want to be in the editing phase. I have a feeling like that would be easier to just adjust and add stuff here and there instead of actually having to put all the words to paper, you know? At the same time, what the fuck do I know? One thing is for sure and that is that this thesis is effectively kicking my butt. Hard. But it’s okay. I knew this was going to happen. All my procrastination and bad steps dictated that this was inevitable. We still have six days to get it all done. It will be okay. Or rather it has to be okay. I just keep having so many things I need to write down. Frankly, I need to stop thinking about it in terms of pages and instead, I should focus on getting the points I want across. That’s so much more important. I need to remember that. It’s vital to have things that make sense and show what we can do. I got my almost eight hours of sleep and that’s positive. I’m fed and watered. I’m sitting in a comfortable position with a snoring Robin next to me and my A Calm and Quiet Place candle lit next to me. This is a moment in time I will never have again and there will not be that many of them in the future after we hand in and I graduate. This is a precious moment. I need to show everyone - myself most of all - that I can do this. I can write my thesis and it can make sense and bring attention to cool things. It’s good. It looks cool so far. I like it. We are going to make it, but I need to keep up momentum and I need to write my ass off. It’s a good thing that I have a lot of practice in that regard, so let’s get to it.
Tuesday, 10th of September, at the family house, 8 PM: I’m back to write more. Between the pasta leftovers I ate this morning and the fried potatoes, I think my whole body is just carbs at the moment. Is carb loading a thing when you’re not being physically active but instead trying to use your brain as much as possible? Probably not. It should be though. Less than a week until the finish line. There are so many things to get done. By Thursday morning, we would like it that we are only missing the conclusion and the abstract and then obviously the whole editing process. We’re meeting up at my flat, which is a good thing. Hopefully. It should allow us piece and quiet to work through the texts and hopefully write the conclusion as well, so that the abstract is literally the final tiny thing that we need to finish. We are over the hundred pages mark at the moment. It’s a good feeling but I’m still a little worried about the quality and whether or not we are missing shit because at this point in the process we have no concrete time to fix anything major. I will just have faith in the fact that what we have done is good enough. Alright, I’m stalling because I don’t want to write anymore for today but I have to, so I’m going to hop to it.
Thursday, 12th of September 2019, at the family house, 11 AM: I have backed myself into a bit of a corner and I did something very impulsive yesterday. A story idea came to my head and it would not leave me alone, so I wrote 16k for it. Yes. That’s right. It’s equivalent to 38 academic pages. Within like eighteen hours. Why am I like this? I have a thesis to get done but I just got struck by inspiration and essentially, I’m a weak ass bitch and my heart beats for fiction. Now I have to leave in an hour to meet up with my thesis partner and I have to have my pages done by then, which I don’t think I would be able to even if it was fictional writing. Help. I am an idiot. So I’m just going to speed type something out? What? Who knows. I’ll just go for it. Absolute immersion? WHAT! Let’s get to writing. AHH!H
Thursday, 12th of September, at my flat, 7 PM: So I didn’t manage to finish shit before we met up but I did just manage to finish one of the sections that I should have been working on yesterday. Time is running out fast but for the next three days my thesis partner and I are meeting up every single day so that’s a good thing and she will keep me writing, editing and working. I still feel like a shitty thesis partner but I can’t do much about that but try harder from now on. I’m just lucky that she loves me and forgives my procrastinating ass. It’s been a tough half year though and I kinda hate everything academic but we are nearly at the finish line. We will get there and it’ll be so glorious. Watch me go! (The end is in sight and it doesn’t feel like we are that fucking horrible far away from it anymore, which is incredible).
Saturday, 14th of September 2019, at the family house, 8 AM: Huh, I didn’t do an entry yesterday. Yesterday was a bizarre but very productive day. I still feel like I’m floating through a bit but we are getting there? I finished my analysis (FINALLY!) and then I read through the lit review and most of the discussion, where I also wrote a lot of shit in and I’m just about to finish that now. It’s been a long couple of days but that’s okay. We have two full days to get shit done. It’s still a lot of hard work in front of us but the end is in sight and we are going to be able to hand in on time. I might have had that doubt in the back of my head for a long time, but considering that it’s only really the conclusion and the abstract that remains (and of course the fuck ton of editing) that is doable within two days. We just got to work hard. So let’s get the bread, gamers! (I really disappoint myself with some of these meme references but you know what, I can do what I want). One I don’t regret is something I saw on tumblr that was along the lines of “who decided we needed to do conclusions in essays? I said what I said. Scroll up, bitch.” I quite like that one. It tickles my fancy. Alright, enough rambling. Only academic discussions from here on out.
Saturday, 14th of September 2018, at the family house, 4 PM: I thought that I had finished my part of the discussion but evidently I hadn’t. It pains me more than it should right now. And then we have some more concrete notes for the conclusion but it’s still only maybe a third way done. And there are all the edits and the analysis. I feel stuck and it’s pissing me off a bit. Why am I getting angry about this? Answer: I’m not, I’m scared and worried, which is then suppressed and I can only do through manifesting another emotion that is stronger and more demanding of attention. Hence, the feeling of anger. I hate it. It’s so annoying but yesterday was a good working day but the days need to be good consistently. Why? AH! I’m so annoyed at that. It’s not goddamn fair, you know. I will riot. I swear I will. I am not scared to cut a bitch. I don’t know who it would be but I am willing to do it. Just watch me. I think it’s just a case of my brain being overloaded and the fatigue setting into my very bones but it is not something that I hadn’t expected before. It’s the way of life when you have backed yourself into a corner like this. Everything is still okay. We will make it. It just requires so much concentrated effort that it makes me fucking annoyed. But you know what I can do to finish things up? Write quicker, better and get the stuff down on paper so it’s ready for the edit.
Sunday, 15th of September 2019, at Dad’s office, 10 AM: And so we begin our final day. I’m tired but hopeful. We have got a lot of stuff to go through but it’s mostly superficial. A full day’s work ahead of us but it’s nothing that we haven’t done again and again this week. With a little luck, we’ll be done for dinner time or otherwise we will just stay here until we are finished. We have so many final touches to check up on and stuff but I’m hopeful. It’s good. We are going to move past that finish line. I am starting to feel calm for the first time since this whole process started, though I will feel better when we have the final version in our hands. So let’s get on that, shall we?
It's more than a little bizarre to read back through those, if I'm being perfectly candid. Most of them were written within the last week and a bit and I can easily use my past self's words to transport me back to those moments. It is a little terrifying to put these out there. It makes me feel vulnerable but I am going to do it all the same. The insecurity and the anger is palpable through the words. I was so angry at myself. I felt so utterly terrified. I knew that in the moment but looking back at my entries is a little upsetting. I'm still not entirely over the feelings that have claimed my body for a full week (and been hanging over my head ever since the spring). I wrote less entries, both in frequency and volume, towards the end because I felt a little more centred and calm. Things were finally looking up. Still, if I could go back in time, I would encourage my past self to try to start sooner to avoid being this stressed and worn-down. It might also have produced a better product. I like what we handed in but I think I could have been better.
Then again, the therapist that I saw in the early spring months said something that stuck with me and I tried to remember it while working on the thesis. I couldn't have done it any differently. If I could I would have. Something was stopping me from starting earlier and I did my best with what I could. I guess she was trying to teach me to forgive myself because you can't change your past actions. You just have to adapt and try the best you can. However, I think you should also try to use them as lessons for the future. I can't change my thesis writing process but maybe I can use this experience to stop me from backing myself into such a tight and terrifying corner again. I hope so.
I am not angry anymore. All the anger has drained out of me because against all odds we made it and I'm confident that we will be able to pass with the oral defence (though I still worry that I won't like the grade). But I am still scared. The future is other there waiting. My parents talked about sending out job applications at dinner today. One of the reasons I was such a procrastinating mess is because I don't know how to deal with everything that comes after. It's a big and scary world and I have been a student for my whole life. I know how to do it. I find a sense of comfort in the routine and the expectations. At the same time, I feel woefully unprepared despite knowing that I have learned a lot through my six years at university. I have gathered nearly all of my ESCT points and my Master is in the palm of my hand.
Just one little one hour oral exam and then that's it. I'm a graduate. I don't know if I have ever been more scared.
Just over a week before the deadline, I stumbled across the quote below on tumblr and it stuck with me. I am always someone who have been a fan of just taking to the keyboard and seeing what happens. I don't suffer from writer's block in the sense that I can never get words down. I can ramble, especially when I type, until the day I die. But still academic writing has always been a little bit of a different struggle. It is all about proper language and having backing for your every claim. You can almost never just say something, even if you believe it to be right. You have to prove that people before you have said it or at the very least you have to carefully and painfully document that you have findings to back your claims. It makes sense. It's a way to ensure that people don't just sprout nonsense but as someone who has always thrived with the idea that I can make entire worlds out of nothing but words on a page, it can be daunting - even more so when I have no guideline but I am still expected to adhere to all the academic rules that have been poured into my head for six years.
As a way to help kick myself into actually writing and not just wilfully ignoring my computer and the thousand tabs and documents I had open, I started to write journal entries. I used to do it every night, just for myself, but it has gone out of the window this year (along with a lot of my stability, if I dare be so honest). I might bring it back because there is something cathartic about just ranting my heart out. As such, I didn't want the entries to just go to waste because they are a snapshot in time, a time capsule of my emotions while struggling to finish the thesis. Still, some of them are very long and incoherent, so I have narrowed it down to just showing fragments that probably still reveal a lot of my mental state. Hence why it has a whole bucketload of swear words. I was pretty horrible to myself, especially in the early entries but it thankfully gets better as I got more and more work done.
Thursday, 8th of August 2019, at university, 6 PM: Okay. Writing. That’s a thing I do. I do it so much outside of academics that I almost feel like I forget what it’s like to write “proper” academic shit. So I’ve got to warm up. Warming up means ranting. It’s the passage of nature, or at least the passage of me. It’s currently 6 PM in the evening and I’ve not been writing much these past days and we have a meeting to evaluate how far we are by tomorrow, Friday, so like a responsible student (and adult) I’ve left myself plenty of time to write my parts. In the distance, you can hear someone is cackling. Shut up otherworldly entity. I can do this. My hands were made to fly across the keyboard and I will write until I’m blue in the face. We’ll see if the quality and appropriateness of whatever I produce but I will put words on the screen and I won’t even let myself stop me. Stubborn me has been called upon and she’s a force to be reckoned with. Just fucking watch.
Sunday, 25th of August, at the family house, 2 PM: This is bullshit, right? What the fuck am I doing with my life? I feel unable to tackle the task in front of me but so far it’s just some vague shit that I don’t have any actual idea about. I haven’t fucking tried. You can’t fail if you don’t try. You can just float through the world and not exist. And that’s not healthy to want to feel that or to even accept that as okay. I’m done floating. I can’t float anymore. There are just three weeks before a complete thesis has to be handed in and I have written about 4 usable pages out of the roughly 60 pages that should be my half of the assignment. That’s so little. It’s miniscule. What the fuck. My brain keeps trying to spin me some bullshit about optimal conditions and motivation but I know my writing modes and I also know that I sometimes have to push even when I don’t want to. I told my partner that I had part of the methodology down and that was a downright lie. I don’t care if my anxiety is spiking and I’m spiralling out of control. It’s just a few weeks, you know? I can write. I can sit down and write this, this processing bullshit, and that’s just to get me warmed up. Get me ready. It’s a big task. No one is going to deny that but it’s also just an assignment. I’ve done so many of those and I have been doing quite well, despite whatever treacherous shit my brain is telling me. It’s just a fucking assignment.
Friday, 6th of September 2019, at the family house, 11 AM: I don’t feel like I can do this. I haven’t been writing all week. I’m lost. Tired before I even start and I’m just terrified. I feel like shaking. I feel like a panic attack is breathing down my neck. I’m letting everyone down, my thesis partner most of all and I hate it. I don’t feel equipped for this at all. I feel like a fraud, imposter syndrome turned up to a 110. It’s horrible. I’ve written maybe five pages out of what I have to write? It’s horrible? I don’t know what’s going on. I want to lie, I want to pull myself apart. I don’t think that I can do this when I sit down to write. I feel the sins crawling on my back tenfold. Like what the actual fuck. I feel trapped and stupid and so angry all the fucking time. But will it help to postpone it? No. I’ve learned that lesson. It doesn’t help. It just gives me more time to procrastinate. More time to have this heavy thundercloud over my head, pouring litre after litre of water into my already soaked and shaking being. Like what the actual fuck? It’s so horrible. I don’t feel like I can do it but Mum was right with her peptalk this morning. It’s really not a choice, you know? I have to finish it. I’m shaking and I do really feel like that panic attack is not that far away. Why am I so unstable? I haven’t even finished the things I promised to have done like two weeks ago? Things I said that I had gotten done but I didn’t because I’m a liar and a fraud and a despicable human being. Wow, my internal monologue is very harsh today. It might not be entirely undeserving but it’s not that bad. It can’t be. Yes, I fucked up. I fuck up all the time. That’s nothing new. Yes, time is running out, much faster than I would like it to but who the fuck cares about that? Time is a social construct and we might have to adhere to it but it is still arbitrary to some extent. I think so. Who the fuck knows anymore? I don’t know shit but I do know bullshit, right? That’s what I’m indirectly saying here. I can bullshit with the best of them. So I’ll bullshit. I’ll pretend and keep my head high and try not to get bogged down by everything. It’s too late to change the course anyway so we have little choice but to try to weather the thrashing sea. Just look at my colourful language here. If anything, it’s the one thing that no one can take away from me. I’m a writer. An actual legitimate writer, no matter if I’m pushing my fingers into the keys to express everything in my head that won’t come out properly through my mouth or if I’m writing fictional stories that counts thousands and thousands of words that bring people emotions when they read them or if I’m writing an academic assignment. My issue is that I don’t trust this project, not fully. It's just for ten days. Ten days is no time at all and it’s inherently terrifying to struggle this much. It’s partly being tired of being a student, partly the fear of the uncertain future that awaits me on the other side of the hand-in but it’s also an innate want to care but being unable to. But if I want to care so much, I have to get invested. I have to pour my heart out into it. It’s the only way. Fuck.
Friday, 6th of September, at university, 2 PM: Well, this is the warm up write here. My thesis partner is stressed on my behalf. Not ideal at all. Fuck. This is bad but there is really nothing I can do about it except sit my butt down and write. I mean I’m sitting right now and I’m writing but that doesn’t really count. I continue to be an idiot but my time is up now. Ten pages a day? I mean, it’s quite a lot but you know. I can try. I will try. Fuck all of this. Shit, I’m just still scared but there is literally nothing I can do about this. It’s so fucked up. Well, what can you do, you know? It’s what it is. I’m a little baffled and scared but it’s the way of life. I did this to myself. So now I’ll strap down and just write like my life depends on it. It kind of does to be honest. It’s really unnerving. Like literally what the actual fuck? I don’t know. Breathing is hard at the moment. Anxiety is still crawling on my skin. It’ll be the norm for a while. That’s not exactly okay but it’s bearable. It is despite how much I will undoubtedly whine about it. Which will be a lot. But for now, enough with the whining and back to writing.
Sunday, 8th of September 2019, at the family house, 9 PM: I am quickly and inevitably running out of time. Still, I’m caught in this bizarre half-panicked but not really panicked state? It’s utterly bizarre and I think it’s a way for my body trying to protect itself because I will otherwise get entirely overwhelmed and I’m already doubting everything. Despite everything I still only have like ten pages? I don’t know how any of that works out to be real life? It’s so bizarre and I don’t know how to explain it. I’m just baffled and a little hurt about the whole thing and I’m pulling back from everything and everyone and I don’t feel like I know how to do this. Or rather I feel like I might know how to do this, just a little but it so many tasks and so much effort and I don’t actually want to put it into it. I think my mind still has some fucked up perspective of this being glorious and not an absolute shit storm of lack of academia. I don’t know. It feels a little like that. Am I even a university student anymore? I don’t feel like one. Not at all. It’s bullshit. I’m back to typing that, huh? Well, whatever. I can type bullshit. Let me bullshit my way through this whole thing. I have a lot of notes to get down on the real penultimate question, and a lot of points. Can I support them with our theories? We will fucking see, mate but for now I’ll just write whatever the hell I want. Nobody can stop me. FUck!
Monday, 9th of September 2019, at the family house, 11 AM: Well, here I am again. Venting to my document. I managed to write out a theory last night and I’m just about to start working on putting down the theory that I have been actively avoiding all of this time. Fun, right? Hmm.. I’m not so sure about that. I believe that my thesis partner is still freaking out. I am surprisingly not, despite only having like 20 pages to my name at the moment. It’s fun. But it’s also a bit ridiculous because we talked about doing 60 pages each but it doesn’t really work like that, you know? It’s not binary like that. We have models and final touches, an abstract to write, the conclusion, so much stuff is just still out there. I’ve been a horrible thesis partner so far but it’s not the time to focus on that right now. I just have to put my hands to the keyboard again. I am hopeful that I will be at a more respectable page number by tomorrow. It will be okay. We still have a bit of time to edit, even with that. We will get it done. Again, the pages are not as damn important as the content. I’m happy with what I’ve written so far, so that’s good. We will make it work. I fucking swear.
Monday, 9th of September 2019, at the family house, 10 PM: Well, it’s only natural that this document has just entirely turned into incoherent rambles where I argue about the thesis. I didn’t manage to get everything done entirely according to plan. I guess what I should be focusing on is the fact that I do actually accomplish stuff after the dillydallying, even if it takes a while. Mum read through my work so far she said that it seemed sensible. She has nothing to say about correcting my language, which is not unsurprising but I always feel a little warm whenever she compliments my English. It’s my creative language and I’m so proud of all that I have accomplished with it. Still, I can’t help but feel a bit of tightness in my chest because I only have what 20 pages at the moment? I just checked. 22 pages in characters. It’s so very little. I might like the words that I have put down but seriously. It’s still a long way to go. It’s my own fault for waiting to the last minute. I don’t have anymore time. It’s just this, a ball of stress but a manageable one at least by now. It’s almost laughable how short academic pages are and yet I’m struggling a little with reaching the goals but it’s not because I don’t think I can write it. It’s because I’m worried that it won’t be good enough or that I’ll mess up. I don’t know where this insecurity has come from but it’s not welcome here. I hate it. I want to kindly evict it because it’s an unwelcome guest in my brain and it’s making my poor anxious side act up. The worry that I won’t be able to reach the goal is still lingering but I am more determined than ever before with each passing day.
Tuesday, 10th of September 2019, at the family house, 9 AM: My hands are slightly trembling this morning. Probably not the best thing. I did just eat some food and drink some more water in an attempt to steel myself for the day. It’s set to be another long one. As will every day until Monday but that’s okay. I’m making careful progress. I need to get more pages down, and I need to figure out any and all potential questions that we might have for our supervisor because it’s the final time that we’ll see him before hand-in. Fuck. This is really something, you know. I want to be in the editing phase. I have a feeling like that would be easier to just adjust and add stuff here and there instead of actually having to put all the words to paper, you know? At the same time, what the fuck do I know? One thing is for sure and that is that this thesis is effectively kicking my butt. Hard. But it’s okay. I knew this was going to happen. All my procrastination and bad steps dictated that this was inevitable. We still have six days to get it all done. It will be okay. Or rather it has to be okay. I just keep having so many things I need to write down. Frankly, I need to stop thinking about it in terms of pages and instead, I should focus on getting the points I want across. That’s so much more important. I need to remember that. It’s vital to have things that make sense and show what we can do. I got my almost eight hours of sleep and that’s positive. I’m fed and watered. I’m sitting in a comfortable position with a snoring Robin next to me and my A Calm and Quiet Place candle lit next to me. This is a moment in time I will never have again and there will not be that many of them in the future after we hand in and I graduate. This is a precious moment. I need to show everyone - myself most of all - that I can do this. I can write my thesis and it can make sense and bring attention to cool things. It’s good. It looks cool so far. I like it. We are going to make it, but I need to keep up momentum and I need to write my ass off. It’s a good thing that I have a lot of practice in that regard, so let’s get to it.
Tuesday, 10th of September, at the family house, 8 PM: I’m back to write more. Between the pasta leftovers I ate this morning and the fried potatoes, I think my whole body is just carbs at the moment. Is carb loading a thing when you’re not being physically active but instead trying to use your brain as much as possible? Probably not. It should be though. Less than a week until the finish line. There are so many things to get done. By Thursday morning, we would like it that we are only missing the conclusion and the abstract and then obviously the whole editing process. We’re meeting up at my flat, which is a good thing. Hopefully. It should allow us piece and quiet to work through the texts and hopefully write the conclusion as well, so that the abstract is literally the final tiny thing that we need to finish. We are over the hundred pages mark at the moment. It’s a good feeling but I’m still a little worried about the quality and whether or not we are missing shit because at this point in the process we have no concrete time to fix anything major. I will just have faith in the fact that what we have done is good enough. Alright, I’m stalling because I don’t want to write anymore for today but I have to, so I’m going to hop to it.
Thursday, 12th of September 2019, at the family house, 11 AM: I have backed myself into a bit of a corner and I did something very impulsive yesterday. A story idea came to my head and it would not leave me alone, so I wrote 16k for it. Yes. That’s right. It’s equivalent to 38 academic pages. Within like eighteen hours. Why am I like this? I have a thesis to get done but I just got struck by inspiration and essentially, I’m a weak ass bitch and my heart beats for fiction. Now I have to leave in an hour to meet up with my thesis partner and I have to have my pages done by then, which I don’t think I would be able to even if it was fictional writing. Help. I am an idiot. So I’m just going to speed type something out? What? Who knows. I’ll just go for it. Absolute immersion? WHAT! Let’s get to writing. AHH!H
Thursday, 12th of September, at my flat, 7 PM: So I didn’t manage to finish shit before we met up but I did just manage to finish one of the sections that I should have been working on yesterday. Time is running out fast but for the next three days my thesis partner and I are meeting up every single day so that’s a good thing and she will keep me writing, editing and working. I still feel like a shitty thesis partner but I can’t do much about that but try harder from now on. I’m just lucky that she loves me and forgives my procrastinating ass. It’s been a tough half year though and I kinda hate everything academic but we are nearly at the finish line. We will get there and it’ll be so glorious. Watch me go! (The end is in sight and it doesn’t feel like we are that fucking horrible far away from it anymore, which is incredible).
Saturday, 14th of September 2019, at the family house, 8 AM: Huh, I didn’t do an entry yesterday. Yesterday was a bizarre but very productive day. I still feel like I’m floating through a bit but we are getting there? I finished my analysis (FINALLY!) and then I read through the lit review and most of the discussion, where I also wrote a lot of shit in and I’m just about to finish that now. It’s been a long couple of days but that’s okay. We have two full days to get shit done. It’s still a lot of hard work in front of us but the end is in sight and we are going to be able to hand in on time. I might have had that doubt in the back of my head for a long time, but considering that it’s only really the conclusion and the abstract that remains (and of course the fuck ton of editing) that is doable within two days. We just got to work hard. So let’s get the bread, gamers! (I really disappoint myself with some of these meme references but you know what, I can do what I want). One I don’t regret is something I saw on tumblr that was along the lines of “who decided we needed to do conclusions in essays? I said what I said. Scroll up, bitch.” I quite like that one. It tickles my fancy. Alright, enough rambling. Only academic discussions from here on out.
Saturday, 14th of September 2018, at the family house, 4 PM: I thought that I had finished my part of the discussion but evidently I hadn’t. It pains me more than it should right now. And then we have some more concrete notes for the conclusion but it’s still only maybe a third way done. And there are all the edits and the analysis. I feel stuck and it’s pissing me off a bit. Why am I getting angry about this? Answer: I’m not, I’m scared and worried, which is then suppressed and I can only do through manifesting another emotion that is stronger and more demanding of attention. Hence, the feeling of anger. I hate it. It’s so annoying but yesterday was a good working day but the days need to be good consistently. Why? AH! I’m so annoyed at that. It’s not goddamn fair, you know. I will riot. I swear I will. I am not scared to cut a bitch. I don’t know who it would be but I am willing to do it. Just watch me. I think it’s just a case of my brain being overloaded and the fatigue setting into my very bones but it is not something that I hadn’t expected before. It’s the way of life when you have backed yourself into a corner like this. Everything is still okay. We will make it. It just requires so much concentrated effort that it makes me fucking annoyed. But you know what I can do to finish things up? Write quicker, better and get the stuff down on paper so it’s ready for the edit.
Sunday, 15th of September 2019, at Dad’s office, 10 AM: And so we begin our final day. I’m tired but hopeful. We have got a lot of stuff to go through but it’s mostly superficial. A full day’s work ahead of us but it’s nothing that we haven’t done again and again this week. With a little luck, we’ll be done for dinner time or otherwise we will just stay here until we are finished. We have so many final touches to check up on and stuff but I’m hopeful. It’s good. We are going to move past that finish line. I am starting to feel calm for the first time since this whole process started, though I will feel better when we have the final version in our hands. So let’s get on that, shall we?
It's more than a little bizarre to read back through those, if I'm being perfectly candid. Most of them were written within the last week and a bit and I can easily use my past self's words to transport me back to those moments. It is a little terrifying to put these out there. It makes me feel vulnerable but I am going to do it all the same. The insecurity and the anger is palpable through the words. I was so angry at myself. I felt so utterly terrified. I knew that in the moment but looking back at my entries is a little upsetting. I'm still not entirely over the feelings that have claimed my body for a full week (and been hanging over my head ever since the spring). I wrote less entries, both in frequency and volume, towards the end because I felt a little more centred and calm. Things were finally looking up. Still, if I could go back in time, I would encourage my past self to try to start sooner to avoid being this stressed and worn-down. It might also have produced a better product. I like what we handed in but I think I could have been better.
Then again, the therapist that I saw in the early spring months said something that stuck with me and I tried to remember it while working on the thesis. I couldn't have done it any differently. If I could I would have. Something was stopping me from starting earlier and I did my best with what I could. I guess she was trying to teach me to forgive myself because you can't change your past actions. You just have to adapt and try the best you can. However, I think you should also try to use them as lessons for the future. I can't change my thesis writing process but maybe I can use this experience to stop me from backing myself into such a tight and terrifying corner again. I hope so.
I am not angry anymore. All the anger has drained out of me because against all odds we made it and I'm confident that we will be able to pass with the oral defence (though I still worry that I won't like the grade). But I am still scared. The future is other there waiting. My parents talked about sending out job applications at dinner today. One of the reasons I was such a procrastinating mess is because I don't know how to deal with everything that comes after. It's a big and scary world and I have been a student for my whole life. I know how to do it. I find a sense of comfort in the routine and the expectations. At the same time, I feel woefully unprepared despite knowing that I have learned a lot through my six years at university. I have gathered nearly all of my ESCT points and my Master is in the palm of my hand.
Just one little one hour oral exam and then that's it. I'm a graduate. I don't know if I have ever been more scared.
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