So. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. May 1st is only two weeks away. My thesis will be done and I'll be able to finally breathe. This anxiety that sits like an alien waiting to burst out of my chest will be over. Khalas! Voila!
For all the stress though, I shouldn't kid myself by pretending to be apathetic. Faking apathy is perhaps a coping mechanism for those nights after a cold crew practice in the rain where all I want to do is curl up into a ball after a hot shower and go to sleep. Apathy is what I pretend when I push aside thesis to spend a whole weekend at a regatta. And in a way, apathy toward my thesis is a way to help me stay grounded in what I care about most: my friends, crew, and enjoying the people I love before they are whisked away from me.
But ultimately, I can't kid myself for too long. I care more about this thesis than I've let on, even to myself. I care about it so much that it keeps me awake sometimes thinking about what it all means. I tear up when I watch all the videos and testimonial of women getting the shit kicked out of them by military police, getting striped, club, spat on, and humiliated with state issued "virginity tests." Yet, in Tahrir for over a year, women talk about democracy and womanhood in the face of incredible violence and repression. Women have died protesting, while I sit at my desk writing about it.
If that's not humbling, I don't know what is. I owe it to more than just myself to turn in a good paper. I owe it to the women that have made themselves the front-line of social change worldwide to help their true voices be heard and their stories remembered, even if its only heard by a few students at a really privileged liberal arts school.
For all the stress though, I shouldn't kid myself by pretending to be apathetic. Faking apathy is perhaps a coping mechanism for those nights after a cold crew practice in the rain where all I want to do is curl up into a ball after a hot shower and go to sleep. Apathy is what I pretend when I push aside thesis to spend a whole weekend at a regatta. And in a way, apathy toward my thesis is a way to help me stay grounded in what I care about most: my friends, crew, and enjoying the people I love before they are whisked away from me.
But ultimately, I can't kid myself for too long. I care more about this thesis than I've let on, even to myself. I care about it so much that it keeps me awake sometimes thinking about what it all means. I tear up when I watch all the videos and testimonial of women getting the shit kicked out of them by military police, getting striped, club, spat on, and humiliated with state issued "virginity tests." Yet, in Tahrir for over a year, women talk about democracy and womanhood in the face of incredible violence and repression. Women have died protesting, while I sit at my desk writing about it.
If that's not humbling, I don't know what is. I owe it to more than just myself to turn in a good paper. I owe it to the women that have made themselves the front-line of social change worldwide to help their true voices be heard and their stories remembered, even if its only heard by a few students at a really privileged liberal arts school.
