Chapter 1 First Draft Complete!!

Through much hard work and due diligence, I met my goal of completing Chapter 1 of my thesis by the end of today with give or take 6 minutes to spare. All I can say is "I want sleep." I literally cannot make any other words come out of my mouth. The only reason I can write anything right now is because I have just spent the last week (almost exactly) writing non-stop. So my conclusion is that my hands are in auto-pilot, using their muscle memory to write this blog post.

Anyways, it is seriously a relief to be done with that chapter. I thought it would never end. Next is Chapter 2, Materials and Methods, which I already have mostly done, so this next week shouldn't be as bad. Maybe I should try to finish that chapter by Friday, so I can have a few more days to work on the following chapters, which could arguably be fairly time-consuming.

Goodnight, I think I'm losing my mind now, and sleep is calling.

Update.

I think I might post regular updates on my thesis-writing progress. I think I'll use this as a way to keep myself on track and hold myself accountable. I rather like posting, but I can't post unless I've made a decent amount of progress!

So, progress report for today:

I now have a solid 28 pages written for my introduction, not including the 5 or 6 reference pages or title pages.

Short-term goals:

Write another 3-5 pages tonight, and finish the introduction by tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted!

June 21st. Judgment Day.

It's been decided. June 21st (or the less likely alternative, June 22nd) will be the day I defend my Master's thesis, which will determine if I get to update my CV. That gives me about a month to write an 80-page document consisting of 4 chapters. Yikes. I have about 15 solid pages of my introductory chapter written, not including the 15 or so title, dedication/acknowledgments, and reference pages, as well as about 12-15 pages for materials/methods and results. But there's still so much left to do. I have a couple experiments to complete, mountains of reading and writing to tackle, publishable figures to put together, and a kick-ass presentation to prepare for my defense. While I really do feel quite confident (overall) that I will achieve this goal and receive my degree, I feel very overwhelmed right now, and I am blinded by the narrow-vision that accompanies stress. You know, the kind of mental and literal visual block you feel when everything bombards you at once? Yeah. I just have to remind myself that it will get done and that these kinds of kicks in the butt (aka deadlines) are the driving forces necessary to promote the completion of long-standing projects. So now... to deactivate my Facebook account.




Also, I want this shirt.