I've made it! The thesis is hot off the press, packaged in envelopes, and making its way through the post to my thesis committee. And I've made it to the other side!
What a crazy ride it's been these past few months. After all, how are you really supposed to deal with (1) undergoing some significant and unanticipated transitions (intermittently full of laughter and tears) in my personal life when all the while (2) writing up the capstone the last four years of your work (and consequently being prevented from enjoying the few beautifully sunny days of the elusive Parisian summer) and on the side (3) performing an Airbnb juggling act that involves regularly relocating to new home-bases across the city?
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How to deal with a stressful situation when it's July in Paris: need you ask twice?
For the Parisian neophytes, July, along with January, are the two times of year when everything goes on sale. And in case you do not know my family so well, competitive sale-shopping is in our blood.
It was retail therapy all the way through this thesis (and a lot of late night music blasting as I burned the midnight oil). The shoe shopping addiction started upon the discovery of a low-cost shoe website that carries hundreds of designer brands (with excellent markdowns) that furthermore gives surprisingly accurate user recommendations as to whether to purchase your normal size, a size up, or a size down. It felt just like a steady cash flow: in through Airbnb, out into les soldes (the bi-annual sales). And all this took place in a second window of my browser while I diligently wrote up my thesis.
With much delight, I received my final pair of shoes (those lovely boots!) only a few hours after mailing off my thesis this very afternoon.
And now I'm off to the south of France, this very evening! What else is a girl to do after printing out her thesis?
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| An image of of the Institut Pasteur this morning at 6am after I retired with quiet satisfaction from my last late night of thesis writing |
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| My thesis is born! |
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How to deal with a stressful situation when it's July in Paris: need you ask twice?
For the Parisian neophytes, July, along with January, are the two times of year when everything goes on sale. And in case you do not know my family so well, competitive sale-shopping is in our blood.
 |
| This is how I survived my thesis. |
It was retail therapy all the way through this thesis (and a lot of late night music blasting as I burned the midnight oil). The shoe shopping addiction started upon the discovery of a low-cost shoe website that carries hundreds of designer brands (with excellent markdowns) that furthermore gives surprisingly accurate user recommendations as to whether to purchase your normal size, a size up, or a size down. It felt just like a steady cash flow: in through Airbnb, out into les soldes (the bi-annual sales). And all this took place in a second window of my browser while I diligently wrote up my thesis.
With much delight, I received my final pair of shoes (those lovely boots!) only a few hours after mailing off my thesis this very afternoon.
And now I'm off to the south of France, this very evening! What else is a girl to do after printing out her thesis?
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