I didn’t realise how quickly November had passed until I was scouring through my laptop to find photos for the “lately” section of this blog post but found the folder for this month virtually empty, except for the few iPhone photos I had already posted for my week-in-review blog posts. Life has been really, really good except for having to write my senior thesis. It’s exciting to think that when my December-in-review blog post goes up at the end of this month, I’ll be done with my fall semester, and more importantly, done with my frickin’ thesis!

The first half of the week I spent trying to finish up my thesis draft, and the second half of the week I spent on Thanksgiving break! Now I’m back at school and on the academic grind. We’re getting closer to the finale of my senior thesis. Which means the next few weeks are gonna suck, but I can’t wait to be over and done with it! Honestly, I could handle the chaos that the end-of-term brings to all my classes, but this senior thesis is just… so much…

For the most part, I’ve been pretty good about making time for friends and I’ve been more spontaneous with our time together. But lately I’ve been turning down activities because “I have to work on my thesis.” I don’t really feel bad about it because I do need time for my thesis and I also need time to myself, although I could definitely be more efficient with my productivity. But anyways, I mention this because my friends are always asking me how my thesis is going, especially around times I have deadlines. For example, I had my thesis presentation last week, so my friends would ask me how it went and stuff. If you read my weekly update last week, you’ll know that it was rough. But when my friends asked me in person, I’d reply with, “It was chill. It was fine.” And then maybe a few days later they would check in with my blog, then come back to me, lay a somber hand on my shoulder, and be like, r u ok. I think the contrast of my feelings and expressions online vs. in real life is interesting and kinda funny. I think I respond more superficially in real life because it’s tiring to go through those emotions again and explain them, whereas online, I have time to sort out my feelings and it feels clarifying and cathartic.

I was anxious all week about my Friday thesis presentation. Throughout the whole week, I felt Friday looming toward me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone (I mean, I did, but I wasn’t into it) and my patience for everything waned. The night before my presentation, I hardly slept because I was not only practising for it, but also still researching new content for it. I was seventh to present out of the ten people in my seminar. My heart was pounding so hard, my teeth were clenched to keep them from chattering, and my leg couldn’t stop bouncing. I contemplated the possibility of dropping my linguistics major and just majoring in computer science, in which case I wouldn’t need to write a whole thesis, only a lit review. I kept reminding myself that this was just a presentation, that in the scheme of the thesis meant nothing, and that in the scheme of my life meant less than nothing, and that in the scheme of the world meant far far less. I told myself that in the worst case scenario, I would give a bad presentation and would have to answer questions with “I don’t know.” And I told myself that I could survive this worst case scenario. Thankfully my presentation didn’t play out to be the worst case scenario and went fine in fact. My mind, body, and soul immediately lifted after my presentation. After my friend and classmate got through her presentation (which followed mine), we congratulated each other and I was grinning so hard.

This past week was a relaxing one. I did my time the week before and after fall break. Which meant that I was able to work two weeks ahead and make the life of future Audrey easier. Of course, I only worked two weeks ahead because I was procrastinating my second senior thesis presentation that I have to do this Friday. But I’ll get around to that.