What do you do at the last 100 meters of a relay race?You dash for it. And that is exactly what I am doing now. It's approaching the final week of my undergraduate studies, and I'm putting in every microlitre of my energy for the last sprint towards the finishing line.
To simply put, it had been such an eventful semester. Frankly, I didn't have the time to sit down quietly to put things in perspective until this evening; I was racing against the clock in my relay race of thesis project and thesis writing itself. When I gave my thesis first draft to my supervisor for evaluation, I suddenly had free time on hand to mull over these things. Let me just run through some important events since my last depressing post.
- 1. Wrapping up of bench work
I have already whined enough about my long lab hours as I tried to achieve as much results as time permitted. On the day I wrapped up my project, I gleefully declared to my colleague, "This is my LAST miniprep!!! You won't see me in the lab doing lab work anymore! Hah!" At that time, I was too stressed out about starting on my still-blank thesis, hence the impact of halting benchwork, something I totally enjoyed doing, didn't really hit me. It may have been very tiring, and most of the times frustrating when you do not get expected results, but I totally love buzzing around the lab, doing experiments, and sharing ideas, jokes and complaints with colleagues across the bench, spreading (yes, all those hundred over plates I had to spread) bacteria culture on agar.... I just feel purposeful and fulfilled doing lab work. And I would definitely love to go back doing bench work soon.
You know, I never ever thought I could write a book, or thesis, for the matter. That I managed to self-pen a scientific writing in 5 days (yes, 5 days!!) simply amazed me. However, it wasn't all a pleasant experience though. My momentum took 3 days to pick up, and when it did, I went into full force writing. I used to be able to read only a maximum of 2 journal articles a day, but during the height of my momentum, I was reading 20 journal articles in 6 hours. My mind became so immersed in all the information I was frantically organizing in my head that it went into an overdrive and I didn't sleep for 36 hours, all the while writing non-stop. When I finally finished my draft, I couldn't help smiling to myself, because the piece of work felt like a baby: it started a blank sheet of paper, and I wrote the 50 pages all by myself!! Felt like glowing with pride.
To illustrate just how stressful it had been producing this piece of work, let me show you my workstation at the height of stress.
I gave up working at my tiny desk, so I laid out the extra mattress on the floor and strewn the entire room.
A. Journal papers
B. Reference books hidden under the bed
C. Clothes I never had the time to fold
D. Speakers necessary to play music that would soothe my already frayed nerves
E. Laptop perched on several reference books for better ergonomics
F. Preliminary thesis draft
G. Project log book
H. More reference books
I. Thesis writing guideline
J. More journal papers
K. Thesis outline(s)
L. Even more journal papers
M. Where I sat rooted for the whole weekend writing
Every area on the floor within my working radius was strewn with all sorts of references as I rushed to finish my draft. When I finally walked to school to submit the draft to my supervisor, I was brain dead and swaying on my feet. But I persisted until I reached the office.... only to find my supervisor not in. I really wanted to quickly pass her the draft and then go back to my room and conk out for the rest of the day, but had to wait for her return to personally pass her my precious writing effort. But she didn't return to office some 2 hours later, and I could felt myself going into delirium, so I dropped my thesis on the shelf near her door along with an email reminding her to pick up my thesis... and crawled back across the campus to conk out in bed.
In a cruel twist of fate, heavens decided to release floodgates and a carnival of lightning as I started walking back to my room. Stranded in the walkway, I contemplated to wait until the storm recede or run some half a km in the rain to reach my bed. My lethargy won the debate and (un)willingly, I walked in the rain to go home and sleep. It goes without saying I was drenched like some wet blanket, and after a hot shower, I crashed out. I mean, really crash out. I conked out the moment my head hit the pillow and didn't wake up until some 15 hours later. I could really sleep summore, but had to meet my supervisor regarding the first draft thing. Reluctantly, I climbed out of bed and could felt my brain pretty much detached from the rest of my body. I was so mentally drained that it felt like I had taken some mind altering drugs and then in a hangover state. When I reached the office and greeted my colleagues, I felt like an alien speaking earthling language for the first time. The hazards of staying up 36 hours writing a thesis.
However, all the hardwork (and sacrifice of one night's sleep!) more than made up for it when my supervisor told me I did a good job with my draft. I had in fact felt very stressed out and nervous about her response to my first draft, because the rest of my FYP mates seemed to have their drafts bounced back out for some major changes before qualifying for a real draft review. I had braced myself for the same outcome (and another night of no-sleep!), so her comment took me by pleasant surprise. However, she asked that I reshuffled some of my materials before qualifying for a real draft review. So, my draft still got bounced out, but thank God no major changes required. So, after tweaking a little here and there, I managed to submit my corrected draft to her for a real review this evening.
It felt like a great relief to be able to take a one night break from the whole thesis writing mania. Throughout last week, I had even attempted to write my thesis in my sleep. The stress level was so great my mind could not rest even though it was pleading for a break. Finally, I can have a good night's sleep tonight!!
To celebrate the end of our projects (and soon-to-be-end thesis writings), our lab decided to organize a potluck today. Everyone was assigned to bring some foodstuff, and we all pooled together for a hearty lunch. It was extremely enjoyable that all of us (including our supervisor!) had the chance to crowd around the table in a meeting room with all the homemade food arrayed out, sharing food, jokes and laughter with each other. There was no uneasiness whatsoever, because everyone dug into the buffet together and crapped while enjoying the food. It was a really wonderful socializing experience and all the more made me felt very attached to the lab. One colleague once described our all-girls lab as a 'loving lab', and I must say she is absolutely right. We do have our ups and downs, but we enjoyed each others' support and companionship incredibly. More so, that our supervisor is such an incredibly down-to-earth person, whom we can laugh and joke with so easily. It'll be really sad to leave the lab soon, but it had been such a wonderful semester with them and I'm sure it will be a fond memory in time to come.
- 4. Poster presentation preparation
I would probably start whining about how I haven't started designing poster for my poster presentation and all the stress that comes with it, but the invitation email to the poster presentation from the FYP coordinator today threw me in a psyched up mood. As I read through the poster list, I felt excited about the upcoming poster presentation because you can feel that it is going to be such a meaningful event for everyone of us graduating FYP students. All our hardwork in the past 6 months will be up on exhibition and we are given one whole day to express our efforts and all things we learnt these 4 years in a grand demonstration of more than 150 posters. I can't help but feel excited at the diversity of the projects listed in the poster list, because I truly feel research is fun, exciting and rewarding in its own right. I don't know why I'm all that hyped up, but it feels like my university days will end in a bang. I truly enjoyed every moment of my FYP and I'm determined to enjoy every last moment of it.
Looking back, I appreciate all the ups and downs I had faced during my undergraduate studies because it had helped me grown so much as a person. All happy and sad times, all tears and laughter are like snapshots of my life I'm determined to keep as good memories as life goes on. It makes me proud to say that I have no regrets joining the School of Biological Sciences, and it's the choice I had wanted all along for my undergraduate life.
To all my coursemates: let us make the last mile dash together! Best of luck!
～みはる～
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