Design: Kazi Akib Bin Asad

POV: You're panicking while writing your undergraduate research thesis. Well, trying to write your thesis.

What you're actually doing is staring at a mostly blank Word document. A working title is up there, but that's about it. 

Speaking of panicking, why is it that words that end with a consonant preceded by a single vowel, double the consonant in their continuous tense, but in case of the word "panic" the English language was all, "Aight, Imma add a whole different letter, namely 'k', m'kay? Panic to panicking, you don't know man it's just weird to you."

Also, did you know we get the English word "panic" from the ancient Greek god named Pan? No, nope. You're writing a thesis. DON'T GET DISTRACTED!

Sigh. So, this is how it's going to be, huh?

In that case, here are five ways to control your anxiety… But wait, the anxiety will still prevail. There's no way out, and that's just a sad reality.

Instead, here are some of the many different ways that writing an academic paper can get to you.

Thinking that you won't graduate

This is harmful thinking when you know you have to graduate. Well, you don't have to graduate, but being a dropout is not an option either. So you're, what, trying to achieve the impossible? For once, please don't.

Singing "I'm all alone" like Donkey does in Shrek.

A couple of things to unpack here, the first of which is: Why? Also, you are not alone. As in, quite literally. There are Quora threads dedicated to anxiety induced by academic paper writing and deadlines. Trust me, I googled them.

Bullet points, spreadsheets, whiteboards

All the planning in the world only goes so far, but they're not completely useless. That heavily detailed colour-coded journal that you occasionally take out to flip through and cry – yeah, you know the one – rather than just using it to reminisce the days way back when you were productive, try to tick off one box at a time. And if you find that you can't do that, you break those boxes down into more accomplishable tasks. Because, as someone once (probably) said, the first step towards taking a shower is putting a foot inside the bathroom.

In conclusion, maybe you can write your thesis, maybe your thesis will write itself. Maybe you really are that far gone. Maybe it's Maybelline. Whichever the case is, you know that writing this paper is not a sprint, it's a marathon, and each individual's experience is valid. But you also know that you shouldn't do stuff like going AWOL on your thesis supervisor, or not getting in touch with your support system when you should.

Just a few things to get right, and the rest is in the bag. Now go forth, scholar, and conquer.

Proteeti Ahmed is trying. Share life stories that also follow Murphy's Law with her at proteeti.14@gmail.com