I Hate Deadlines

The past month or so has been quite stressful for me and my classmates in Thesis Writing 1 Class. The deadline for submission of thesis proposals is uncomfortably close - its face merely inches away from ours, its warm breath fogging up my glasses. Yesterday, a Saturday, I had to secure all the necessary endorsement forms. Last night, after proofreading a friend's report, I had to make some minor adjustments to my proposal, making sure all all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed. My tendency to obsess didn't really help, as it forced me to keep reading the manuscript multiple times, page per page, afraid that I may have missed something. After the constant obsessing, I printed four copies. Thank God I had recently bought a printer that can print thousands of pages without requiring an ink refill. The printer didn't give up on me, and there was no power outage. So I consider myself lucky. Finally, I thought to myself, I can breathe again. Earlier today, I had the manuscript book bound. It took about an hour. My husband said now I can stop obsessing. But knowing me, I don't know if I can do that. 

Thesis, a necessary evil

Last Saturday, after perpetually crossing my fingers, and offering my personal intentions at every Sunday Mass leading to that fateful Saturday, my thesis proposal was finally approved. I wanted to shout hurray! from the mountaintops, sadly, there are no mountain ranges in geologically-challenged Manila. I was able to share my ecstatic state with my good friend, Anne though, who happened to be there, and whose last class had been cancelled due to the professor's absence. We celebrated by going to the nearest fast food restaurant, ordering, and eventually devouring extraordinarily unhealthy processed food, which, sadly, I had been prohibited to eat by my nutritionist. Oh well, I was hungry, having brisk- walked back and forth from one building to the other. I have only written about 11,000 words so far, and am in serious panic-mode. I guess I'll be praying to St. Francis de Sales for inspiration. (I wince and hold my breath in anticipation of divine inspiration.)

Running out of words

Thesis writing - It is a necessary evil - something all graduate students have to do. 

Last month, I enrolled in Thesis Writing 1, confident that I had the perfect topic in mind. Being a Creative Writing major, I have to write a creative thesis, and up until two weeks ago, I was so sure that I would write a work of fiction - maybe a few short stories (poetry was out of the question.) 

And then I realized that I already had the perfect story in mind - my story. The one I'd written in Creative Non-Fiction class. And then I went ahead and reread my work - something I wrote three years ago. Oh my! It was so bad, the only way I could salvage it would be to delete the whole thing and start over. 

Calling on the Holy Spirit for inspiration. I haven't even begun yet, and I already feel like I'm running out of words.