Winter at Purdue University
I don’t have a lot of time to write this.
Yes, I’ve submitted my thesis (also known as a Scholarly Paper) and I’ve ticked off almost all of the administrative things required for me to graduate. For a minute, I had thought that this part of the semester would be less stressful than the rest of it has been.
But writing a giant paper is only one part of what grad school is.
Graduate school is a journey. Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you doing your own research and navigating academia is a marathon with all the obstacles you could think of, and even more that you could never conceptualize. Many times, the biggest obstacle you face is yourself.
I once dreamed about when I would be able to collect data. Fortunately, I have now reached that point. While I’m thankful, I’ve also found myself in front of another wall created by my own mind:
The journey to the final semester at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has been a long and complicated one. I’ve jumped from idea to idea, been told to stop halfway through an idea, and have had to figure out being a human in Hawaiʻi through it all.
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The Alvearie 