Heureka!

-Which is Greek and means "give me a towel, quickly!"

Well, I figured something out last night. I've been feeling rather morose and stressed out the last week, and there was a mounting feeling of discomfort I'd been dragging around with me for the whole last month. I boiled it down, and after a ridiculously small amount of honest soul-searching, it hit me.

My Thesis.

Yes, my thesis is what I am afraid of. The realization of that was so utter and so straightforward it kind of boggled my mind. But yes, I'm stressed out about it. Why? Well, I have a reading list, I have some preliminary work, I have a lot of notes, but I didn't know what exactly to write on. So I resolved to narrow down my choices, scrap my old research questions, and basically start a new page in and on the face of my writer's block. I had that slated for the next couple of weeks, maybe compare with the notes I left in Austria, but that apparently wasn't necessary.

Because I had an epiphany.

Epiphany: An epiphany (from the ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, "manifestation, striking appearance") is the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something.

I was walking home from my last lecture for this semester, only today, and as I was just plodding along through Queen's park, with my thoughts on nothing in particular, suddenly, A THESIS APPEARS! I had a realization, a revelation, and I wrote it down immediately, ultimately expecting it to be bogus upon considering it again at home. But it works, somehow. I have a vague idea what book ties into what part, and I actually know what exactly I want to write now. Now all I have to do is write it!

This, my friends, is seriously good news for me, and it verily did brighten my day considerably. I doesn't save me from another 300 pages of soul-destroying urban geography for the test on Monday, but it did give me something I can work on, finally. The new sense of direction is dizzying, and I hope it lasts, because I need it to last for, oh, 80+ A4 pages of rough draft.

It also means I'll have to freight myself down with a few extra books. Oh well, I'm still too amazed with how positively this influenced my general mood that I won't bother with cold realism right now.