[wrote the paragraph below last night, as in Sunday night, but left it undone... I'm continuing now!]
I'm in Hong Sui Sen Memorial Library (that's the biz library to you NUS schoolmates) revising for my last exam, but I must say it's more of an attempt than actually conquering the material. It's partly because I'm a little sleepy, but it's partly because I've just had dinner and need to wind down for a bit! I've decided to blog since I've a backlog of photos.
I also feel that why I'm semi-reluctant to revise for my last examination is because
I'm done with my THESIS and that really made me feel like I'm done with the last year of my university life. :DDD That day really was a glorious day. I think the start of thesis submission begins with getting your thesis printed and then bound. For me, I had made plans with some of the other EL majors to get ours done at Queensway; we'd agreed to meet at 5pm plus. However, I left the writing of my abstract and acknowledgments till the very end, and that took quite some time! So I was rushing like mad, and in the end my doting Papa sent me to Queensway. (': #TOUCHED We even stayed in the car for some time after we'd parked because I was just trying to calm myself down and reading through the paper, trying to spot any errors. In the end I just had to
let it go and then we headed upstairs to find Melcher, Jun Yong and Gang waiting for their respective papers! I handed over my paper to the lady and sat down with them, chatting away with nervous energy. Papa was really cute and went about entertaining himself, even discovering this gem:
Katong laksa! Was so yummy and the cockles tasted really fresh. Had this for dinner *slurps* So yeah. That was my Sunday night, rushing about to get my thesis printed! Papa was really sweet and sent me back home, where upon return, I slumped in my seat and started watching endless Youtube videos.
On 14th April, Monday afternoon itself!
Eunice and I just had to take a photo outside of Talib's office (he wasn't in his office) because we like to joke that though we are his supervisees, we are not allowed into his office; all our consultations were conducted in The Deck, LOL. I personally don't mind having consults in the canteen because it is less stressful but it's just funny to say that we're denied access to his office hahahahaahha
Made everyone who was there take a model-esque shot, but only the right half of the photo achieved it hahahaha :p
CONGRATS FRIENDS, WE SURVIVED!!
Informal shot! :D
Took individual shots!
I wrote a thank note on Facebook (adding in some stuff here):
I'm probably the latest person to post about this but, hurrah, I've submitted my thesis!
I think I'll probably never shake off this niggling feeling - "you haven't done your best", says the voice in my head - and my eyes were brimming with tears while standing at the ELL department office counter, telling Ngui Jian Gang that I was crying to sleep last night because I felt like I was going to do very badly for this thesis, until he very wryly said "Well, I told myself not to think too much about it" and flipped his thesis open to show me left-aligned page numbers. I wasn't laughing at his misery, but that definitely made me stop to think about these negative feelings I was having.
From a 0-word count in Week 7, to a 12,379 words in Week 13; the multiple difficulties I faced: trying to understand psychoanalysis applied to film (what is up with that, by the way), getting nowhere with my data analysis, and just thinking about whether all of this work was going to amount to ANYTHING at all. The thesis underwent an extreme makeover in friggin' WEEK 12 (I think Neo Zhi Wei can attest to this) because I could not pinpoint what was wrong with it, and while I might not be entirely happy with it and am slightly disappointed in myself, I guess one thing I can be proud of is that I didn't give up, and be amazed that I even had the courage to embark on this journey.
Thanks for all the encouragement, help, care and concern you've given me, my dear family and friends!
Thank you Papa and Momma Ng for comforting me at 2am when you hear me sobbing in my room, and for loving me. Thank you for making sure that my basic needs are fulfilled, and that I was in the best condition to write this thesis. Thank you Kor and Di for turning down your edm when I needed to sleep.
To Zhiwei, I'M UTTERLY GLAD I SAT NEXT TO YOU 7 YEARS AGO; I love you so much my seating partner, you have no idea how much your friendship means to me. Thank you so so so much for reading through my thesis three times, and for providing such constructive comments that allowed me to structure my thesis properly. I'm indebted to you for the support you have given me over all these years, and for your help! (':
Thank you Flea Ng, Mrs Twit and Andy Phua I am grateful for all your love for these past years, and Bryan Tong for being my personal cheerleader. An elaboration: Thank you Hudidoo for hearing me out, helping me clear out my cluttered thoughts, and for the random texts of encouragement! To Flea, for having not a clue what my thesis entails, but trying to help your best by googling stuff about voice-over narration for me and giving me Yahoo answers! LOL. Thank you Boss for your eternal faith in me (: Of course, bb dearest who never gave up on me when I desperately wanted to give up on myself - thank you for giving me strength to finish this.
Thank you Bert for that card you gave me - your words have stayed with me and made me much stronger. I've also grown really close to you and I'm just grateful for your company through these two semesters. Thank you for having faith in me and for always being so encouraging! :D
Melcher Tan I feel like you've become my bro or something?! Jian gang too: Thank you for your support for these past years since year 1: I would have never made it through last semester without you two, and I say that in utter solemnness.
To Yihan Nee For being the person that you are, and for the random pearls of wisdom you give me.
To Jianrong Yu Lim Jun Yong Joachim J. Lai Thank you for proofreading (to some extent or another) my thesis, and for being so damn awesome. Talking to you all about anything is always a joy (minus the bad puns), and I am always happy to spend time with you all. The same goes out to: Jody Wanchun Moritza Lim Divya Somasundaram Joji Mendoza Alyssa Tan Rowland Anthony Imperial Joy Yui Eunice Yip Wang Esther Sinyee Vong Joanne Wong Nicholas Ng I wouldn't have achieved this without your constant cheers and encouragement.
I feel like this has been a really long FB post already, and should actually be on my blog instead, but just indulge me a little longer, won't you? To everyone who has helped in one way or another, or made me feel better in this process of writing my thesis, I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!
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Joji and I! (: We've made it!! Time for more steamboat where I can teach you to eat scallops?? LOL
We all thought it'd be a
pass the thesis over the counter and leave sort of thing, but because of the different majors (EL, EN and TS), there was a queue! Lmao. I busied myself with taking photos and helping others to as well!
With Rophie and Eunice!
With Joy and Alyssa! These two dears are so sweeeeeet; thank you so much for all those texts of support!!
Mor and Junyong! Both of them were under Prof Lazar's supervision with really interesting thesis topics! I'm really sure both of them are gonna be awesome teachers teehee
Melcher and Rowland with their supervisor, Prof Vincent Ooi! Anyone interested in corpus linguistics, these are the people to look for haha.
For most of my peers, even after we had handed up our theses, we still had other schoolwork to do...
Case in point: Bert and Gang with their SFG presentation! Their presentation was on sweets though, so I think that was at least enjoyable, to research about, I mean.
For Melcher, Brinda, Filzah and I, we still had our GEK1058 presentation! Annoyingly, this exam is only on the 7th. HONESTLY IT'S MY ONLY PAPER AND IT'S ONLY 30% SO I'M REALLY TIRED OF REVISING. I can't wait for it to be over, really. Our group had a nice time doing our project on caregivers' perceptions and attitudes of language in Singapore though!
Us with our prof, Dr Stephanie Lo! I quite liked her classes on minority languages and metaphors :D
After that, went to the Year 3s' unofficial honours room to hang around:
After some mucking about, met Bryan and Ashley and we went back to their place to celebrate their mom's birthday!
Here's Aunty Slyvia with her huge birthday cake, made for her by her friend!
Meet the Tongs :DDDDD I had Thom with me so I helped to take photos but Aunty Slyvia asked me to join them as well, and Ash went to set up the tripod hahahaa felt so paiseh was so mafan
Check out the interior! Have you ever heard of
surprise-inside cakes? Well this was definitely one of them! We were so surprised when Aunty Slyvia cut through the cake, because we've never really seen vertically coated interiors before. We had quite a discussion about how the cake could have been made; I initially thought her friend had somehow inserted the chocolate ganache into the cake batter, because I dismissed the idea of inserting a knife vertically into the cake and cutting it in a parallel manner to its circumference! Bryan was certain that was right though, and he even drew a diagram to convince us. In the end he googled for the method, and he was right! Here's a link to
i am baker's website for her tutorial if you're interested:
CLICK :D For this particular cake, Aunty Slyvia's friend spent a grueling 5 hours on it! Such dedication, so sweet of her, right! (:
The flowers I bought for Bryan! He's trying to dry 'em out. I love receiving flowers because on top of liking flowers, I actually enjoy the process of observing them slowly wilt more.
Was really glad that I'd handed up my thesis that I was jumping about doing strange poses
I patiently await the day I can do a pull-up HAHAHAHAHAHA
My quirky and exhausted self at the end of the day
It was a really awesome day. (: It was equal parts relief and happiness for me, I think, to finally submit my thesis. I'm glad I had the chance to write about film and linguistics! It really has been quite the tedious journey, and I've really learnt a lot about academic writing from this process. Besides just these technical skills, I've also learnt to support my friends, and also allow myself to be supported from time to time. (:
Patiently await my other entries!!! I promise to bring Thom out more so them photos will be clearer. (:
MUCH LOVE,
pamela
Labels: college, EnglishLanguage, family, friends, grateful, Happy, honours thesis, MAJOR MILESTONE, school, submissions, Thank You, Year 4
