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“It is just one night that is remaining and if we don’t submit it by 8:00 am tomorrow then it's not gonna be good for us,” Natiq said to me.
I was already frustrated and anxious but I didn’t want to create a discouraging environment further so I responded
“Don’t worry just keep trust in you and me, we are going to make it. We have tried for the whole last month and now it’s time for the last gear .”
The last month, we were busy with a tedious clinical project. Though this was assigned to us about 2 months ago yet due to some religious festivities, vacations, and mainly due to our indolence we procrastinated it last month thinking we would have done that easily but it proved very tedious. It was a clinical project which is mandatory to complete before graduation. Our research to assess knowledge about the disease, its treatment, and misconceptions among TB patients. Thinking it is a common disease so it would be easy to research this but to our fortune, it took a very long time to collect data.
And now we had just one night to compile the data.
We were not sure whether the project would be accepted or not as it was not just about collecting data and giving findings but it was also to be defended.
“I will formulate it as best as I can but the rest will be upon you because you will have to present it,” I said to Natiq.
He was quite a confident person but this time he was demotivated and underconfident as well because the failure of the project would delay our degree.
“That’s why I am sitting with you and reading and memorizing everything along with you “ he responded.
We finalized the soft copy of our project by 3:00 am and the hard copy was to be submitted after its presentation.
The very next morning we got up early and revised the project again.
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“Are you nervous?” I asked Natiq seeing him eating his nails. He didn’t respond as he was lost somewhere else.
I prodded him
“Natiq are you alright? Are you nervous?”
He said yes a little bit
“I am just thinking will we be able to defend our research? I have heard that many of the groups have been rejected. I am just a bit nervous about that”
His concerns were valid as I was tense also but I didn’t want to demotivate him further so I tried to relax him
"don't worry we have prepared well and we are gonna return successful"
The defense started, Natiq started well by giving the overview, sharing the questionnaire used as a key to do our project, highlighting objectives,sharing supported data and a conclusion based upon the data, in the meantime, he fumbled in the discussion section. I tried to hint him via some words but that portion was not up to the mark.
The supervisor and external examiner noticing discussion as our weak part, spearheaded a question foray on us from that section. Though we tried to prevail over the examiner via our answer yet he didn't look so inspired.
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Now the time was for the examiner's remarks on the project. when he came to the rostrum, our heart was pa;pitating so heavily. He commenced with spotting our errors and hearing that we were disappointed thinking that our efforts had gone in vain. But then he commended us on our questionnaire which covered all the aspects regarding disease, the methodology to collect and assess data, and the way it was compiled. And finally, the word accepted instead of revise relaxed us.
and this how we completed our project by the skin of our teeth
This is my entry for #inkwell #nonfictionaol #writing #prompt 83.