That's why there's been no posting around here this month. The 27th was the deadline for my final year project (stressful enough) but I had four other deadlines due in during the two weeks before that. Did someone say stressed?
I decided it would be a good idea to keep a "diary" type post of the process. Both because I'm proud of getting through the last two weeks, and also because I thought stress-free me might enjoy reading stressed-me's thoughts. Crazy? Yes well, you'll see why.
[Context: We began our statistics on March 3rd. I had finished my Introduction and method section. My statistics took me 5 hours, I did 4 tests wrong, had to do an additional 3 1/2 hours and wasn't sure if I had done it correctly. Because of this, I didn't have a discussion section, and I hadn't written up my references. I had about 3,800 words. We were having a lot of difficulty getting hold of our supervisor because of how hectic her schedule was/is. I had sent my half draft on the 7th but hadn't heard anything back. I haven't finished any of the work for the other four deadlines (16th x2, 20th, 24th)]
March 12th
Just spoke to my Personal Tutor who said there is typically a two-week turnover for drafts. That's the amount of time I have until I have to hand mine in. I could have cried when he said that. Currently sat in the library (it's 11:07am), hidden away and going to attempt to tick off as many of today's goals as I can before I go home. Didn't sleep well last night thanks to stressing out so I'm shattered right now. Hoping my apple and water will kick some energy back in to me (cycling to Uni this morning helped!)6:19pm and I'm home, waiting for the shower to be free with a domino's on its way. I didn't get all of my goals done today but I spent 6 1/2 hours in the library (a total of 9 hours on campus today - 8 1/2 doing work!) and I have finaaaaaally emailed a complete first draft to my supervisor. It's been such a delayed start to this project, I'm hoping this next bit is a bit quicker*. Absolutely no work will be done for the rest of this evening. I am going to relax and celebrate a day's hard work!
*I had no idea, oh my god.
March 13th
Cycling to the Mumbles was nice this morning but even that going wrong was more fun than being here in the library right now. I feel exhausted, drained and I think I need to go home*.(5:30pm) Cycling home was hard. At one point I wanted to just stop, find a hole and live there forever. I din't but it was close. Finally home though! Tom's helped me de-library and now I'm upstairs plodding along with work while he makes us tea. He's put Toy Story 2 on and I can feel the stress falling off me!
*Tom had tried to tell me not to go to the library today but I insisted. Such a terrible idea, this was a horrible, horrible afternoon. He was so helpful when I made it home though, bless him. I could not have survived this month without him.
March 15th
Had a day off from work yesterday for Mum's Mother's Day (celebrated a day early thanks to the amount of deadlines me and Lottie have). No rest for the wicked though, up at 9am today and managed to hand in my Clinical Case Study (all 2,000 words of pure rubbish) by 11:30am!The rest of today has been spent finishing my poster*. I treated myself to a solo trip to Costa (with my work obviously) just for a change of scenery! Finally finished it and handed it in at half 9 this evening. Time for a break before bed, well-deserved I think!
*I had two deadlines on the 16th. One was a 2,000 Clinical Case Study where I had to formulate a treatment plan for a hypothetical patient (we have never done anything like this before, I was so clueless). The second was the completed poster for the poster presentation I would be giving on the 24th. It was explaining how a certain factor could explain the criminal behaviour of a hypothetical case study.
March 19th
Ironic that I've been too busy to write in the post all about tracking how busy I've been... right? I'm not sure my laughter at the irony is actual laughter, or as I described it to my Personal Tutor this morning, "panicked laughter to hold back the tears". I'm currently sat in the library hugging my medium vanilla soy latte (which now makes up 70% of my body I'm sure) and I'm about to hopefully spend the day finishing the essay I've got due in tomorrow.My meeting with my supervisor this morning was cancelled, so of course I went in anyway and I think it had a positive outcome. Well, it will have as long as I get my draft and feedback back* by tomorrow afternoon. One week tomorrow until my final year project is due in!
Destressing this week has involved spending a whole day in bed, food cooked for me by Tom (who took me on the sweetest date on Monday**), cooking my favourite dish on Tuesday (cawl) before a hilarious trip to the cinema to see Swan Lake with Meryn, and then the gym yesterday where I spent 15 minutes doing a high intensity ab work out only to wake up this morning to find I don't magically have abs. When will this next day delivery for the gym begin then?!
~~~
It's 11:54am now.. I'd say I have about 1,400 words to go until I've finished my essay. Considering I've already missed a lift while stood in front of it and tried to put my memory stick in the cash machine, I'm going to say this might be a painfully slow process.
14:49 and I've decided to head home and finish my work there. 1,918 words that need editing (and therefore more words need to be found). I'm just too tired to want to sit in the library and continue... I need my bed! Still haven't recovered from how little sleep I had the night before last***, ugh!
*The draft from the 12th.
**It's official now you guys, I'm his girlfriend! Ahhhh!
***Living with other people isn't always easy, let's just leave it at that.
March 23rd
I've had too much time off this weekend and I'm really paying for it today. Getting up and into Uni was a real struggle this morning. There's something so demotivating about facing a full day spent on your own in the library, struggling through work. I submitted my essay Thursday night (about 10:30pm) and it's probably the worst piece of work I've ever handed in. I just couldn't do anything else to it and even though it's worth 70% of the module, I just had to grit my teeth, face that fact and submit it anyway.I was in bed, lights off, trying to go to sleep at 8:30pm last night. That's almost 11 hours of sleep and I still feel completely exhausted. I'm living for being able to go home and have an undisturbed night of sleep in a quiet, warm, clean house. It's funny the things you miss when you're this drained.
~~~
14:30 - still in Uni! 5 hours now... I've finished going through the feedback though! 6, 519 words at the moment. I need to write my abstract (200 words), look through my discussion (I want to add some more to it) and then I can get started on the headache that will be referencing. Tonight will be dedicated to getting ready for the presentation I have tomorrow... As if I needed public speaking stress on top of everything else!
*The draft from the 12th.
**She went above and beyond with this feedback, it was truly fantastic.
March 24th
Got home around 4 yesterday afternoon only to discover our Internet wasn't working. It still isn't working which is both a good and bad thing. Good because it forced me to do some work on my presentation for today (I'm so underprepared it's not even funny) and it let me do the nitty bitty parts of my project, like writing the table of contents and formatting it all properly. It's bad because it means I can't reference properly or add anything new to my discussion. How to solve this problem? Coffee shop wifi of course! I'm sat in Costa right now, about to start referencing and then trying to find some kind of research paper about typos within Internet communication. Wish me luck!
~~~
The good news keeps coming as well as I'm completely finished with my draft. I've done the abstract, table of contents, all of the sections, improved my discussion section AND referenced the whole thing. I'm going to email it to my supervisor tomorrow morning and fingers crossed she has time to look over it! I might be able to hand it in before the middle of next week!!
*I am not joking when I say that my body is about 70% caffeine right now, I've drunk so much coffee this month.
March 25th
Woke up early this morning to finish everything off, like adding my cover page and sorting out my appendices. I emailed the document around 9am this morning; my supervisor replied about 2 hours later to say she'd received it and would look through it when she can. I'm now in a weird limbo place of not-free-so-can't-properly-relax but can't-do-any-work-till-she-replies-again... I've had a nice chilled day today and I'm about to plan everything I need to do tomorrow ready for printing and binding my project. I'm so so close to having this finished, I'm excited to be free![I found out that my next deadline - a 2,000 word essay for my Sleep and Dreaming module - is actually closer than I thought it was* but I'm ignoring that because I really don't need that added stress right now!]
*It's the first Friday after Easter (24th April), and I have a 10 minute presentation the following Monday.
March 26th
Still no draft! I'm still firmly in that weird limbo place where it feels wrong to relax/not do any work but there's nothing I can do to my FYP until she sends it back.Instead, I've started getting ready for my assignments after Easter. I've chosen a paper for my essay and another for my presentation and emailed the respective lecturers to double check that they're relevant to the assignment. I'm now just reading over them to familiarise myself with them before I start making notes... Feels weird to be this organised!
~~~
*This was horrible. I felt so defeated. All I wanted was to have finished the work and know when it was going to be handed in. The uncertainty of the whole thing really got to me. I just couldn't cheer up and just wanted to have a stress-free sleep for once.
March 27th
Happy Deadline Day!*Still no draft and it's actually horrible watching everyone post selfies or talk about being free/relaxing.
~~~
10 minutes after writing that I sent an email to my supervisor only to receive an automated email saying that she was on leave until the 7th of April and would not be able to reply until then. Our extension deadline is the 10th of April**.
I think I can feel my hair falling out from the overload of stress I just experienced. I honestly want to cry right now.
I just want this stupid thing finished and handed in, why is this not happening.
*Ha.
**I can't explain what it felt like to receive that email. I just couldn't believe it. It felt like our bad luck was never ending.
March 29th
Our supervisor is on sick leave until April 7th and the department don't know if she'll be replying to emails or not (although they seem to think not). We've emailed and asked for any kind of help and right now it's looking like they'll just have to give us a further extension.We'll know more tomorrow though since obviously they're not in during the weekend. I just want this thing gone!
~~~
Oh my god someone in my group just posted that they've had a reply from our supervisor and after checking my emails, I've just seen that she's replied to me omg omg omg.
SHE HAS SAID I CAN HAND MY PROJECT IN!
Oh her feedback is so helpful yet again! I really hate how unfortunate the situation has been, she's such a wonderful supervisor. It feels like the Universe is determined to give us all the bad luck for this! But omg omg omg the end is in sight!
March 30th
IT'S OFFICIAL, I HAVE HANDED IN MY REPORT!
Oh you have no idea how good it feels to be able to say that.
I had my project (and a personal copy) printed and bound this morning. My Mum drove me to University, took a picture of me with the official copy and I handed it in at 11am.
It still doesn't feel real. I feel like I should be checking my emails or looking up papers or just worrying about something. I am free I am free I am free I am free!
Two weeks, five deadlines, 11,000 words, more stress and caffeine than I think is possible to count and I am finally free.
I am feeling extremely proud of myself right now.
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