After 5 months of intensive poring over theories and criticism, scribbling pages of anti-mindmaps, bouts of anxiety, lethargy, insomnia, hacking away at the computer keyboard from one morning to the next, agonizing over the lack of time and despairing over the lack of perfection, feeling paradoxical mixtures of happiness and inadequacy after every supervision session... it's finally over. The Honours Thesis is printed, bound and ready for submission on Mon.

For the past week, I've been feeling like I just want to finish the HT in time to the best of my ability, and get it over and done with. I really am glad that I've managed to finish everything to a reasonable degree, yet I can't help feeling that I should have produced something much better than this. I still feel like I've not lived up to my supervisor's expectations, even though he has been very nice and has consistently been telling me over the whole semester that he's very pleased with what I've written. But there really isn't any use in thinking about improving the HT now, and I certainly should put it aside and concentrate on my other assignments waiting for me...

Here's an "acknowledgements" page which I obviously couldn't put into the HT but is not any the less sincere for its informality:

I really want to thank all the friends who have helped me throughout the semester. Thanks especially to PY who was always ready to give support and advice in times of need, and Minwei who was always ready to lend a listening ear to my constant griping about the thesis. Thank you to the girls from the Metafiction class and to Joan and Leon for cheering me up and taking my mind away from thesis troubles during our lunches every Monday and Tuesday. A big thank you to Pei, Kim, QR and Stefan too, for always welcoming me to the Hons Room. Although I never did manage to get much work done there, I've enjoyed every minute I've spent there chatting and laughing and getting to know you guys better. And thanks also to Kevin for poking me on msn with much-appreciated words of encouragement. I couldn't have gotten through this semester without the companionship of all of you.

I should also thank my sister, who has played an invisible but certainly considerable role in the logistics of my HT by photocopying books and running all sorts of strange errands for me. And last but definitely not least, I'm really grateful to my supervisor for everything he has done for me. He has been awfully sweet, guiding me as I struggled to shape my thesis without dogmatically imposing anything on me, giving me my independence and yet providing me with such invaluable advice which has definitely contributed to the argument of my thesis on the macro level, agreeing to see me in Week 12 and offering to read my Intro and Conclusion 5 days away from the submission date, and always, unfailingly, encouraging me with undeserved praises and giving his full support for what I've written. I will attempt to do as Pei has predicted I would, and say "THANK YOU, DR Y!!!" in font size 100, haha.