Feeling Empty after Finising a Big Project

I've experience it before but this time it hit me quite hard. Having work on my BA project for over three months straight, it felt odd to hand it in, as mentioned briefly in my count down post. I had been working on it for so long and poured so much into it, some parts being far more challenging and others feeling more like a second nature to me.


It's been the same with other projects, like SRP in gymnasium or the annual projects during school. But this was a university level assignment and the big finishing project, mind you still the lowest level of an academic education but it's still so grand much.

Two days ago, I had my oral examination where I had to defend my BA Project. All those hours poured into that 59 pages "thing" I would have to justify for in less than 20 minutes and that oral defence would account for a big portion of the grade. Talk about pressure.

Months of lectures and studying all came down to being judged conclusively on mere minutes. Some flourish. Others choke, which is a shame as potential might be hidden behind the nerves.

By a Girl who Loves to Write aka. Me

 

Luckily, I'm very good at keeping my cool and actually prefer oral examinations to written ones! Introvert who (just kidding, still me)? But I actually like the Danish standard of doing both; handing something in and then having an oral exam based on what you handed in. However, as indicated in the quote I've made above, I don't necessarily think it's fair to be judged on a whole semester in such a short period of time, even if I mostly flourish in that environment.

I only began studying a couple of days before the exam, because procrastination set in, but I did study and rehearse quite a lot once I got started, though I took so many breaks in-between (which I think worked well actually). In the end, even with almost half an hour delay on the day, I went in and nailed my presentation. I then proceeded to knock over my cup of water afterwards, but let's forget about that. During the conversation afterwards, I could answer all questions as I knew that project like the back of my hand after all the read-throughs.

I walked out with a 12, or what in America would be an A or what in UK would be above 70 %. I was happy and so thrilled when my partner went in after me and got the exact same grade. Yay for team work! This is going to sound like I'm a snob or something but I honestly don't think I would have been happy with any other grade. I've done so much to give me room to work on that project and if it hadn't "paid off" on the transcript, I know I would have been disappointed. Even knowing I learnt a lot from it either way.

I'm now standing with a strange sense of aimlessness. I don't know what's coming up for the next eight months!

Found on Tumblr - gotta love Finding Nemo

I feel a bit like those fish in the GIF above; they've executed their plan that they worked on for a while and now they don't know how to proceed. That project became a part of my everyday life, both in a positive sense and in a negative one. It gave me something to work on and build from the ground, which was exciting, but it also made me walk around with guilt if I didn't work on it constantly.

I watched a video by Colleen Ballinger the day before my exam, in which she explained how she felt sad to leave the people and the life she had built for months while filming her Netflix show in Vancouver. This was even before I was officially finished but I related a lot to her words and I knew I would feel the familiar stab of emptiness when I was done with something that I had worked hard on.

I'm not sad, as she was, since the whole process was very tough on me and even made me prolong my education and reschedule courses. But I do feel a bit lost without something to guide my days now. It's the freedom I've longed for, for a long time. Still it's daunting. I'm slowly figuring out other things to pour my energy into, such as writing on here, creating new stories and building on my current ones, reading the stack of unread books on my desk and I've even taken up drawing again, which I haven't dabbled in for years.

Here's to a summer of freedom and creativity!