Final Project Writing Is a Special Kind of Pain

i'm in the thick of report writing now. exams are looming. just me, my laptop, and the crushing weight of academic expectations.

final project writing is not a normal kind of writing.

the problem

you'd think after three years of university essays, writing would be easy. nope.

report writing is:

it's like normal writing, but you're also conducting research while writing about the research while questioning whether the research is even valid.

9am: open report document. stare at it.

10am: write 300 words.

11am: delete 200 of those words.

12pm: lunch break (actually just staring at a wall thinking about methods sections)

1pm: actually write something useful

3pm: realize i need to run more experiments because my results aren't complete

4pm: pivot to coding instead of writing

6pm: feel guilty about not writing enough

9pm: write 500 words in a panic

midnight: question all life choices

repeat.

1. stakes feel high this is the capstone. it matters. (or at least it feels like it matters.)

2. nobody else has written your report can't look up "how to write this specific section" because it doesn't exist.

3. feedback loops are long you write something, send it to your supervisor, wait a week, get feedback, rewrite. slow.

4. scope keeps shifting every experiment raises more questions. every draft reveals gaps. the target keeps moving.

i'm writing a blog post about report writing instead of writing my report.

this is procrastination. but also processing? let's call it processing.

word count goal today: 1000. actual word count: 427. blog post word count: 400+. priorities unclear.