I realize now that I'm a bit punchy. This is the inevitable result of too much writing/researching/agonizing over my senior thesis. As Christian would note, I am losing perspective in the world because of the stress I feel over my thesis. Currently over 70 library books live in my apartment. They live in piles on the floor of my bedroom, on tray tables and in bookcases (if they're lucky). I trip through a sea of research notes, copies of my thesis sections, sixty-odd pages which must represent a thousand work hours of my life. My walls are stuck with adhesive sticky notes, some of which are lists and chronologies, while others record scattered thoughts and ah-hah! moments. I live in my writing clothes--fleece sweatpants and an Oxford sweatshirt Jill got for me while she was abroad in the UK. It's four in the morning, and I've written 8 more pages today, although perhaps 10 less than I ought to have by now.
When I finished, I ballet-danced across my hardwood floor, ate stale buttered bread from dinner, attempted to decide whether I should move on to the next objective or ride out my caffeine jitters watching late night / early morning television and drifting (hopefully) to sleep.
I feel as though I exist in a semester of perpetual finals, and I feel alone most of the time. I dream about bibliographies, sources, imagined research leads I missed. I toss and turn and have epiphanies in my sleep about the most effective way to organize a chapter. I think I thought I'd think this was cool. I think I thought I'd feel like a scholar or intellectual in a way that was not previously experience, as if writing this thesis was a right of passage or a microcosm of the life I will [/may] one day choose to lead. Instead I feel nervous, jittery, tired, disinterested, guilty. I feel as though I'm constantly late for an important meeting, that I'm constantly offending my professional contacts. Perhaps in retrospect this will all seem part of the process of academic writing.
I know that I have done more for this project than for any other single project. I know I have written more, read more, become more informed about the general context of the scholarship. I just wonder when I will feel as though I have actually done enough to warrant a general sense of contentment with this senior honors thesis. I dread the signs of spring for the first time in my life (I hate winter), because it heralds my oncoming deadlines and due dates. I wonder when my second semester senior experience will kick in. If I can produce a draft by this Friday/Saturday, which is my overwhelming intention, I hope that Spring Break will be the beginning of a more leisurely existence. I wonder if I missed out on an essential experience by taking on the workload that I did. It's hard to tell.
I miss you, social life. I miss you, leisure. I miss you, guiltless fun time. I hope to be coming home soon.
