It’s difficult to feel elated about anything when you’re one step away from being violently sick. That sentence pretty much describes yesterday. On a day that should have been quite exciting, containing a job interview and getting my project mark back, all I could think from the moment I woke up was “please get through this without throwing up”!

And so, having got very little sleep last night, and generally feeling sore, I approach the weekend with less enthusiasm than I should have. Tomorrow I head home for a week (thus making my access to the Internet intermittent) which will be nice. Free food, free TV and all the family members I can harass! Still, it will be nice to see them…. even if it’s not nice for them to see me. Bwahahah.

On the plus side, my project mark looked good, and the comments given are things that I’ve heard before. My supervisor and assessor said the work was there, and it was a technically good project, but that I didn’t sell myself well. I guess that’s always been my problem - knowing I can do something but not having the courage to put myself forward and say I can do it or that I have done it.

It feels weird - the project mark was the last thing I had to do, with the exception of some lovely forms, and now the only thing left to do is graduate. Some of the people I saw yesterday collecting their marks I may never see again. It’s a very odd feeling! Each of us moving off along our own paths.

And the project is in, done, gone, never to harass me again… well, until I get someone pounding on my door with plagiarism letters!

As part of it, we were asked to do a reflections section, summing up the project experience as a whole. I guess this post is going to be the stuff that I didn’t put in there.

It’s amazing how stress can wake up the little voices of doubt in your head. You get stuck on a method, something doesn’t compile, you don’t get the response you expect, and suddenly everything starts up again. The feelings just range from complete numbness to an unshakable suspicion that everyone around you hates you, thinks you’re an incompetent fool and would prefer that you weren’t there at all. Unfortunately, those feelings tended to be at their worst when meeting with my supervisor or my assessor - a constant paranoia that behind your back they’re laughing at you, that they think you’re not worth their time, and that they regret ever taking you on as a student. It makes you think that you don’t belong at University, that nobody wants you there, and that everybody would be far happier if you didn’t turn up any more. And the problem with this is that when you start getting these feelings, they just make you feel more drained and fed up, which just fuel them further.

The run up to the project demonstration and the report hand-in were the worst, except they usually take a difference pattern. I start off perfectly happy, content that things are going well, and then it can suddenly flip to a paranoid self-loathing. It gets worse in lectures, when I’m lying in bed, or when I’m sat waiting for something - anywhere that I have time to sit and think and let my mind wander (I appreciate that in lectures I should be extremely attentive at all times but… well… yeah right!) I just start thinking about other things, and that can be it - I just feel miserable again and then a few minutes later I’m back out of it.

These mood swings are still happening, with today’s lectures proving that something innocuous as a passing conversation can wake up in my mind and I can pull it apart.

Hopefully getting some decent sleep over the weekend will restore to what passes for normality in my life!

Woke up this morning. Got two lectures then do some work. Sounds straightforward enough.

Suffice it to say, didn’t get to the lectures. I just feel so fed up. I really don’t care at the minute. I don’t have any career prospects, I’m undoubtedly going to get a shitty degree classification, and I’m just fed up of this f***ing project.

It’s 12:36 and, apart from going to the shop to get some sweets and beverages, I’ve not left my bed and nor do I see any reason to do so for the remainder of the day.

For those unaware, my project is due in on Wednesday, and I’m nowhere near 40 pages let alone the 50 upper boundary. Another fine grade this is going to get me!