The Postgame
Back when I was a kid, I remember playing a Harry Potter game on a console. If I remember correctly, it was the video game adaptation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I don’t remember much of the game, but what I do remember is what happened after the main storyline was finished, the “postgame.”
In the postgame, Harry would just run around the map and not do a whole lot. He could talk to some NPCs, visit places he’d already been before, and cast spells and whatnot, but the game was effectively over; Hogwarts was in a state of perpetual daytime, and the weather effects wouldn’t ever change from being sunny and warm.
I guess I’m reminded of this now as I finish up my time in the lab. The past month, Gail and I were working on a submission to ICSE ‘22. We submitted two days ahead of schedule (don’t know if that’s good or bad, Reid and Thomas made fun of me for submitting so early), and for the past few days, I’ve been working on weaving the contents of the paper and what I’d already written for my thesis (everything but the evaluation of my tool + discussion + summary) together.
I finished the thesis earlier today (as in, having a version that I can proofread + send to Gail and Reid for review), and I feel as if I’m basically finished grad school. That’s not entirely true, as I still have to make the required edits that Gail will probably send me, and do a thesis presentation, but the days of “am I going to finish in time” are over. I also have to write the acknowledgements section, but I feel like that’s going to be something I do at the very end after I’ve had some time to think about it.
I guess finishing my thesis nearly 7 years to the day when I started undergrad was nice; I still remember my first day and the photos I took. I had Instagram at the time, so I uploaded a bunch to there, but I don’t think I backed up any before I deleted Facebook/Instagram. Oh well. I think next week, I’ll visit some old places I used to hang out during my early undergrad and just be a soppy, nostalgic mess in the time I have left at UBC. I’ve got nearly two months before I start my job (assuming there isn’t gonna be a surprise rug pull), so I’m looking forward to, I guess, “relaxing” for a bit.