#THESISIT

I passed my thesis!!! (You all knew that, but this is a very delayed post thanks to YouTube.) Defense went relatively well; in fact considering the circumstances I think I did a pretty good job (where circumstances = I didn't get to rehearse my defense flow, I was running on 3 hours of sleep with a headache and an empty stomach -- basically, EVERYTHING I SAID SHOULDN'T HAPPEN.) Because I was such a nervous wreck with no program flow, defense ended up being 80% word vomit (which happened to several of us, I've heard) -- srsly, I ended up saying something that dug my own grave and I said in my head "WTF INA DAFUQ DID YOU SAY THAT WE'RE SCREWED", 15% internal freak out, 2% stutter, 2% mental block and 1% of what I actually planned to say. (I was actually half-tempted to have a glass of wine or some other alcoholic substance before I left the house, just to calm my nerves, but I already had that headache to deal with and I never drink on an empty stomach.)

I didn't think my jurors would like my photographs THAT much, to be honest. I thought they'd just be of passable quality, but I got some great feedback. There were weaknesses in my book/thesis (some were what I had feared from the very beginning of my study, others were things I couldn't even comprehend) but all in all I got through it. From the start I was okay with just a 3 --  a pasang awa grade, because I was that desperate to graduate on time -- but in the end I actually got a really good grade! (Not enough for best thesis or anything, but still pretty good.) One of the jurors even showed me the grade she gave me and I was like "OH GOSH YAY" while another out of the three jurors kinda pulled down my grade, but I could understand her perspective so s'all good I'M JUST GLAD I PASSED OKAY LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA SDFKJLAS

When defense was over and I was cleaning up, I ended up crying. While still in the classroom. In front of my jury. HAHAHAHAHA ALL MY NAMIDA I already knew from the start that I'd be crying by the end of defense, be it a good outcome or bad a bad one. I was just SO happy and even more relieved because it was all finally, FINALLY over. All those months of sleepless nights, stress, emotional turmoil and everything in between finally paid off.

Thesis was the most toxic and stressful time of my life so far though. Besides the several mental and especially emotional meltdowns (not to mention all the weight I've gained thanks to stress eating), at some point I got so stressed that I began to see the bad and only the bad in people, especially the ones closest to me. It was horrible. I didn't even tell anyone of my plans for 2013, be it outings or personal projects because I was that scared of thesis. I barely posted thesis updates on my Facebook account (if anything, it was just an outtake or two from a shoot as a ~*~teaser~*~ or thanks to the model) because of the fear that I wouldn't pass thesis and graduate on time. What if I talk about this and that but they don't pull through because I flunked? While everyone on the first day of senior year were gushing, "I can't believe it's my last first day of school!" I on the other hand kept mum because... what if I said it was my last first day of school, but I'd be repeating anyway? Not once did I say it was my last first day of school. I hardly even thought of graduation because I had no assurance of graduating until I was through with thesis. I'm generally a very nervous and paranoid person, and thesis just increased that to the highest degree.

But I did it. I don't know how I managed to pull it off (read defense experience above) especially since a lot of my content was actually crammed. (procrastination station crammerlyf) For most of sem break I was in Hong Kong, and as much as I didn't want to go BECAUSE I HAD #THESISHIT TO DO, I had to comply because of my parents. That's why come second sem I still had not been able to shoot anything for my book, so I was panicking all throughout.

Just recalling defense and how I'm basically done with thesis still makes me teary-eyed. LIKE RIGHT NOW AS I TYPE MY EYES ARE ALREADY A LITTLE WATERY. (Then again, this post was written like two weeks ago now or smthn.) I want to cry. It's all very overwhelming, and having this much freedom and time and sleep all feels very surreal, since for most of the school year I always got weighed down by the terror of thesis and it was as if there was this permanent dread at the pit of my stomach that made my heart heavy all the time.

TL;DR: I PASSED, THESIS WAS STRESSFUL, THANKS ERRBADY (Thank You God especially)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, this is what my photo book (my thesis category was photography - coffee table book blahblahblah) looks like, for those who were curious or were part of the book and wanted to see the outcome. You know who you are! I guess this is a teaser for what to expect in my future posts since I'll be blogging about each and every shoot I produced for thesis. Not to mention the epic backlog I've piled up because of my thesis-induced blogging hiatus. Hope you like it!

I would've had this up sooner but I encountered some problems with file output and uploading. Please note that the attachment of Folded & Hung and Summit Books is all hypothetical okay lolz.