Green lights

I tend to stress. Not that it's unjustified - it's for stuff that matters. Milestones, the start of grand adventures, high-stakes matches, taking that first step into the great unknown... ya know, the stuff that a little stress would be expected. So I work non-stop, don't sleep, and start to stress-bake. The people around me really benefit from my stress.

Luckily, my friends aren't above an impromptu, late-night pizza party in the geo-corner.

It turns out, the things that stress me out the most are the ones where, ultimately, the decision is out of my hands.

Which, in the case of grad school, means whether or not I get the green light to defend my thesis and graduate. The goal of the past 20 months of my life, the decision that either means I'm basically done or I really really fucked up and never get to leave.

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After a couple people asking if I had pink eye or commenting that I looked tired, I started taking pictures of my eyes at the end of the day. The end result is... well, I get why they were asking.

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I was nervous and stressed enough that I fell back onto my pre-rifle match relaxation drill, complete with blaring 'Riot' by Three Days Grace on repeat (yes, it's an odd choice, but I spent 6 years training my heart rate to slow down when I hear it. 14-year-old Amy had a sick sense of humour. Actually, 26-year-old Amy also has a sick sense of humour...).

So that was Friday.

Luckily, I got the green light.

That's right, I get to graduate!

My defence is 24 June at 16:30. Feel free to come and learn all about frozen clay and look at pictures of samples that look like giant turds.

It took about 3 hours, 4 beers, and a couple games of darts, but it finally set in. I'm graduating!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Wonderful weekends. And a thesis.

Life has been... crazy. Adventures have been had, namely the magical holiday to Bonaire that still hasn't gotten an actual writeup. Aaaaaaand it's not looking good. Sorry.

The first weekend of May a couple friends from Alaska came over to visit. This forced me to take a breather from 12 hour days of thesis-ing, and we had a lovely picnic, night out in Delft, and went to a really fantastic Italian restaurant near our flat.

Italian restaurants in Europe are amazing. Every time we've been, we've gotten the full on Italian experience, complete with the proprietor pulling out a guitar and serenading the patrons, and, upon learning that I'm capable of singing, making me sing for my supper. Well, wine. Eating in the small places around our neighbourhood is a group experience, and the food is pretty killer, too.

So a weekend escape without leaving the Netherlands was had and it was lovely.

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Last week I had my final thesis progress meeting. It went... mostly well. I've got enough to finish writing, and finally got feedback on the various drafts I've sent my committee. Which translated to 'here's a metric butt-tonne of work to do. You should get on that'. I still have 12 days before my green-light meeting (when I have to submit what is basically a 95% draft of my thesis. To get the green-light to defend, your thesis has to be at a point where you'd pass without making any more changes). Obviously, this triggered stress-induced insomnia and a string of 14 hour work days. Which will continue until right before my defence.

So after much work, I printed off the entire document sans Appendix and set to work redlining.

The end result is... daunting.

Pretty much 75% of the document looks like this. And it makes me want to cry quietly in a corner. But there's a board with 'good' written in the many languages of the geo-engineering department. So that's cool. 

I can pull this off. A date for my defence has been scheduled (24 June!), and as long as nothing goes catastrophically wrong, I think I'll make it. Obviously, my coffee consumption has jumped considerably. I'm pretty sure 7 cups a day isn't healthy in any universe.

My heart might explode before I'm through with this.

I've had a couple nightmares about my thesis and all the associated documents somehow getting deleted from my laptop. And Dropbox. And Time Machine. And flash drive. That's enough to keep me super duper extra paranoid about the backups, especially at this late stage in the writing process. But I've only woken up in the middle of the night to scribble something down for my results/discussion once or twice, so I figure I'm doing ok.

Also, my phone is full of pictures of clay samples that look like, well... draw your own conclusions...

     

This is literally my camera roll for the last 4 months. There are hundreds and hundreds of these.

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Friday night was a fancy dinner put on by the geo-engineering society at TU Delft, which gave us an excuse to dress up, eat tasty food, and take advantage of the open bar. Seriously, who in their right mind gives an open bar to a bunch of engineering graduate students? But it was a welcome respite from writing, and conversations were had that didn't revolve around the various thesis and research. Plus, a good picture of me and Ev was taken! Plus a few... other pictures that I really like for some reason.

 

My only regret? I wore heels. My feet were bleeding before we made it to the metro station. So obviously I took them off as soon as we got to the restaurant and only put them back on when left. Screw heels.

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Yesterday (Saturday) was my birthday, so after making some post-drinking french toast, I set about making cookies and cleaning the house. And picking up beer. And then I had the first actual birthday party I've had in around 6 years. Since my friends are from all over the world, everyone brought a dish from their home country. The end result was delicious.

The final menu included dishes from Greece, India, the Netherlands (amazingly, not fried), Bulgaria, (northern) Italy, and America. Plus some really tasty flan and Austrian beer. France made a guest appearance in the form of wine (duh).

To top of the day, Ev got me birthday flowers (I'm not sure why that makes me so happy, but it does)!

Yes, they're in an Adams peanut butter jar. I'm nothing if not resourceful. 

All in all, I only spent 3 or 4 hours working on my thesis on my birthday and had a magical evening with friends eating tasty food. The only thing missing from the day was the traditional run with Ev and Colin.

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And now it's time to return to the Real World of a Grad Student and see if I can finish transferring my markups to the doc. And maybe see if I can find myself a job. Cuz, ya know, I love being so stressed I start slurring my words and not sleeping. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.