I have just finished printing chapter 1 of my thesis on nice, white, and firm paper. Just to give myself an academic orgasm. Just to see how professional it would look. If I squint one eye a bit, I can pretend that I've written The Great Filipino Novel. On the other hand, I'm quite proud of the 30 pages I have so far. Who, even in her wildest dreams, would have thought that I could grow up to be an almost-22-year-old who would understand such concepts such as "subaltern." And modify Gayatri Spivak's double-binding of women to include a third layer? And name it:

Women Writing Themselves: Feminist Exile Writing by Ty-Casper, Rosca, and Hagedorn

A senior paper proposal submitted to
Department of English
School of Humanities

Certainly not I. Yay, verily. I am one proud motherfucker. And also quite presumptuous, as I have not even finished the first page of my second chapter. But proud, nonetheless. And I should really quit starting sentences with conjunctions.