I remember starting grade twelve, daunted by the task of my International Baccalaureate extended essay. At 4000 words, it was the longest writing assignment I'd ever faced. I'd completed the bulk of my research in the spring and summer, leaving the fall term to write a draft and the winter to revise it. I remember a significant degree of stress that fall, but the final product was an A essay, which was subsequently published.
Things have changed. The two essays I've written this week (ok, so one of them is not-quite-a-draft at this point - but it will be finished tomorrow) are cumulatively double the length of my extended essay, and the same length as the honours thesis I wrote in my third year of university. That also took me the better part of a semester. All six comps essays will collectively approach the length of my master's thesis.
Times have changed, and scales have changed. I shudder to think of the weeks leading up to the submission of my dissertation. If writing and analysis are muscles, perhaps I am training to be a body-builder.
Today was a good day. I wrote for most of the day, and have completed the most challenging of the six essays. The second essay is approaching draft status - some bits are still in point form or "insert an example here!" but it's coming along. I have four more papers that I have only done preliminary work on, but they concern concepts that I've been engaging with more often during the past year and a half, and are questions that can be reasonably tackled within the given word limit. They won't be easy, and the time constrains are starting to worry me, but at least I am not concerned about them conceptually.
Usually, I work best very late at night. This week, that hasn't been the case; if I'm still trying to hash out ideas after midnight, I've become despondent and self-critical, and emotionally fallen apart. Tonight, I'm going to go to bed before that happens, so that this can be a comps day with no tears - the first one, so far.
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