Many of us have been
there: You work on a piece of... writing for many months (sure, the
first few – or six – months you spend procrastinating and
assuring yourself you'll start working on it... soon). You spend a
lot of time and effort looking for reading different papers,
collecting enough information, making the thing look presentable and
rereading it just in case. You think to yourself: 'Yeah, I'm almost
done. This is pretty good.' And then you discover a minor spelling
error... and then another one. And wait, this sentence doesn't make
any sense. Why does this graph look so funky? It was okay before! Oh
shit, you forgot to add page numbers! And these two chapters are not
in the right order! And then you start all over.
I can't even begin to
explain how many sleepless nights I spent obsessing over this
annoying piece of work. Don't get me wrong – I like the topic. It
is interesting to me and the more I read about it the more intrigued
I became. But after months and months of reading and rereading it,
adding information just to erase it later, changing the headings and
moving things around, I was ready to quit. And by 'quit' I mean take
the midnight train going anywhere and never look back. Honestly,
there was one night in particular (on the 1st of June)
that I was ready to call it quits and leave. I didn't know where or
for how long but looking at the train station across the street I
realized how easy it would be to disappear. I could just step onto a
train going to Riga and then take another train heading to... I
dunno... Poland? And in a few days I would be on the other end of
Europe. Sure, I'd be dead broke, lost and completely helpless but...
at least I wouldn't have to deal with school anymore.
Oh yes, I knew it was
completely ridiculous. But after finding another typo in a chapter
I'd already read at least ten times I was beginning to doubt my
ability to correctly spell anything. How the hell do I misspell
'and'?! How in the world did I manage to get through high school?
Hell, how did I manage to get into high school? This thesis
was making me doubt myself. And the worst part? I really, really
liked the topic. And I liked writing it. I had put so much work and
effort into it that it had become important to me. It was my baby.
And I wanted my baby to be perfect... I would probably be a pretty
demanding mother...
After several days of
going over my work with the help of my mentor I finally finished it.
It was perfect! Or almost perfect. There were a few minor issues but
I hoped that nobody would mind them. I took three copies of my thesis
to the school, signed some papers and there it was. It was over and
done with. It was out of my hands now. I walked home with a load off
my chest, feeling like a million bucks. Sure I was a bit worried but
that was nothing compared to the immense relief that came with the
knowledge that I'd managed to submit my thesis in time and that I'd
tried my hardest to make it as flawless as possible.
I went home, sat down and
opened the pdf file I'd submitted half an hour ago. Why? I don't even
know. I guess I just wanted to make sure I'd submitted the right
file. Yup, there it was. All official looking and filled with long
fancy words that made me sound smart and... was that another typo?!
Oh, for the love of-
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