all done!

Finally handed in the final paper at 2.30pm today. Finished it around 10.30am but was not very satisfied with it. Unfortunately, I had too much of bile for the past few days that I can't seem to think anything else different from what I have written. So I took a break and resume editing at 1pm. E-mailed it to the three professors who will be grading it at 2pm and gave the hard copy at 2.30pm. Could I have done better? Possible but at this point, there's no point delaying it until the very last minute to hand in since I can't seem to make any major changes anymore. Nevertheless, I feel so relieved when I handed it in without having to rush.

Came home after that since I have no mood to start any experiments. The lab bench is still occupied by the previous student anyway. Since my desk was in such a chaos when I left it this morning, decided to give a good cleaning. Organized all the articles into EndNote and I realized that I have read 169 papers throughout the past 3 months. How did I do that? It's more than 1 paper a day and most of them were read critically enough to make comments and create hypothesis for follow-up experiments. I'm amazed at myself. It didn't feel like there was so much to read but now that it's all neatly piled up on my desk, it's definitely thicker than any text book I've ever read. But I'm glad I did because I've learned so much about microbial pathogenesis, from the mild Haemophilus ducreyi that causes chancroid to the deleterious Escherichia coli O157:H7, which is responsible for a deathly bloody diarrhea, and from oral pathogen Phosphyromonas gingivalis to gastrointestinal pathogen Salmonella enterica and even to sexually transmitted Neiserria gonorrhea. It is still overwhelming to be absorbing so much data within three months, especially on areas that I am not doing research on but it is better now than later.

As of now, I'm just enjoying the few precious hours of uninterrupted break. Time to start opening the covers of novels...

~relief~