A professor I occasionally get coffee with told me that writing a book, or researching for a big paper, like a dissertation, is constant, but light stress over a long period, rather than the high, ephemeral stress that comes from writing an essay for university. I feel like Laidlaw is somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, it is much less stressful than coursework, as you are researching for it and writing it for far longer than you can do for coursework. However, it is not the same as a dissertation, as you do not have a year to do it; you have six weeks to do the bulk of the work and then a month to write it.

As the second week of the research period is slowly coming to a close, I am starting to feel guilty for not having the most productive days. Not to the same extent as I do during the semester, but it is there. These past three days, I have just been transcribing all of the notes I scribbled onto my primary sources into a neat Word document. They were not particularly eventful days, nor was I the most productive, so I felt like I had nothing to write about or report. I felt like I wasn’t doing anything interesting, nor was I having these realisations about my project. I was making life easier for future me, but not researching or using my brain at all. This made me feel like I was not doing any work at all, which made me feel very unproductive and like I was wasting my time.

I still have to analyse five sources, but that is nothing compared to the number of sources I have notes on. I looked at the Word document today, and I have thirty-three pages of notes. Over 8000 words, just on primary sources, and I have not finished yet. This brought me an immense amount of satisfaction with myself, my project and this week’s productivity levels. When I scribble annotations on my iPad, I do not realise how much work I'm doing. Seeing it so clearly typed out is such a relief and made me feel good about myself. I am hoping to finish the primary sources today or tomorrow, with a massive weight lifted off my shoulders.