Finally! After the 3 whole months of working on the research for my Bachelor's thesis, I submitted the hard & soft copies to the Examination Office earlier today. It has been a long, tough journey, and I still can't believe that I've made it to the submission. Now that I look back, I'm glad and content that I've accomplished the tasks that I once thought were going to be difficult and would yield unfavorable results.
I remember the first time I experienced a premonition about the culturing of bacteria in a liquid media, when I had to take samples at a 12-hourly interval for 5 days in order to construct the growth curve. The best time to start the incubation would be, according to my plan, at 8 am. Therefore, it wouldn't be too early in the morning, nor would it be too late in the evening.
However, when I was waiting for the next sampling turn at 8 pm, negative thoughts started invading my mind. I was worried that the results would not be good, which would waste the whole week I had spent working on them and cost me another week to repeat the procedure until I got the perfect growth curve showing the lag, logarithmic (or exponential), stationary and death phases of the microbe.
Suddenly, I realized that I had had too little confidence in myself and the things I worked on. What I should be thinking was, "I can do it. The result will be good. Be strong, focus and give it my best shot. Don't make myself weak. When the time comes, I will overcome everything."
Those 5 phrases proved to be much more effective in helping me finish my jobs, compared to being overly anxious about the future outcome or regretting the mistakes and failures of the past. Thanks to positivity, I was able to finish writing my thesis, print it out and submit it to the Examination Office. Support from family and friends are not to be forgotten as well. I'm grateful for having them by my side.
The final step will be the thesis defense session in July. Well, it's natural to expect the task to be difficult. But hey, worrying won't help. The one and only way to overcome it, is to face it with self-confidence.
