base camp reached

I just gave a fairly final version of the introduction and background chapters to Advisor. There are still some citations to fill in, and all the figures are marked off (figuratively speaking) with police tape. But it's in her hands. I wrote her:

Apologies for this taking so long. I'm sure you're familiar with students' underestimation of the difficulty of writing-it-all-down, but it's always a surprise to *us*.

After I gave it to her, she came back into my office area and, laughing, pointed it at me sideways. "Remember, [trochee]," she said, with the thick stack of pages flat between her palms, "this is a master's thesis."

I blushed, and tried to explain: "No, it's 'cause I have to introduce the engineering and the linguistics, on both sides of the lexical layer -"

"No, I understand," she said. "But don't be so hard on yourself. It'll be fine."

So I feel better. I picked up the next chapter (Corpus), and realized that I've already written most of it. I'm reading through it now, and though it looks like there will be some edits, I should have a draft of that chapter done tonight too!