Cold Sweat

(C-Day minus final revisions, defence) Yesterday was a big day, a big terrifying day. The academic semester is sort of misleading in that it doesn't overlap with the thesis completion calendar. In order to get a thesis finished, defended and handed in, a draft needs to go into the supervisor pretty much by the beginning of the second month of the term (Feb., May, or November). This of course makes the beginning of each term a little angst ridden in that as much as it means a new start, it also means that the hammer will soon drop. In any event, this meant that I would not and could not wait for more revisions to come in, and I had to throw myself on the mercy of my supervisor. This is not to say that I am not immensely proud of what I have written thus far, it just means that there may be some undesirables in the thesis as a whole, which is why it was a terrifying day.

The email to which my thesis was attached took me about half an hour to craft, but I can safely say they are a high quality three sentences...of terror! This fine tuning was followed by an additional half hour of humming and hawing over actually sending this finely crafted email, with a finely crafted thesis attached to it to my supervisor. But I did it! I clicked 'send'....and immediately regretted it. Not because I would have done anything differently, but it was that move that could not be taken back. It was like taking your finger off the chess piece, only to look to your opponents determined eyes and regret the move for reasons as of yet unknown to you. So I sweat. Then I sweat some more. Then I got over it. But then I sweat a little more. I sweat because I wasn't sure when I would get a response, even just to say that it had been received and that I wasn't so deficient that I couldn't send an email - a very real possibility given the state I was in.

Somehow I managed to make it through the night, and received my confirmation email today. Two lines (though I doubt it took Supervisor more than 15 seconds to 'craft') that said thanks (he's so nice!) and that he would get back to me "soon". Cue sweating. Soon? You mean judgement passes soon?! How soon? Not too soon. I need a moment to forget that it is off my plate for the moment. Give me a moment! But not too many moments - don't want to start sweating over why it is taking so long. Obviously there is nothing fun about this process, I don't recommend it - not to friends anyways. At least it only lasts a few more days...then it is on to the revisions stress followed closely by the defence stress. Hurray Masters programs!!!

If I was friends (it'd have to be good friends) with Brian Wilson song of the day: Don't Worry Baby - Beach Boys