"Scapegoat"

Its spring break for NCKU right now, I’ll be celebrating it by staying at home and working on my thesis and class work. At the moment, I’m sitting in a large empty room next to the third computer I’ve installed and configured Linux onto in the last week. Why am I doing this? I made a promise to a friend over eight weeks ago to do IT work but between going home, the thesis, and being sick a two week project that was supposed to be done during winter break (February) has been pushed into the first week of April.

I just want to be done with the thesis. It’s been going on for almost a year now and the topic has changed multiple times in my effort to make it contribute value. So what’s left? My advisor needs to approve of what I’ve written, the panel needs to approve of the revision I write from the advisors input, and then I need to collect data through multiple tedious tasks that only get worse because of the language barrier. Once that’s done, I’ll have to analyze the data, draw conclusions, and defend my finding in front of the panel. Oh, I also need to make revisions based on their input before I’m handed a piece of paper saying I’ve graduated. Timetable wise, I have about 2.5 months to do this before the semester ends. I was on track to finish early… now I’ll barely finish on time or later than expected (which I can’t afford). Most of the blame is mine but some can be thrown at others but that won’t solve anything.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stressed out. I’ve had a hard time going to sleep recently, I’m quicker to judge, and I'm spending less time around friends. There have been times I’ve wanted to throw in the towel and go stateside to find a job and move on with my life but that would mean I’ve wasted the last two years. Perseverance is the word of the day.