التَّسليم
root: س-ل-م / verbal noun of form II / definition: submitting, submission
Yesterday I submitted my dissertation and, with it, completed my master’s degree in Advanced Arabic! The dissertation deadline was actually today, so I wasn’t scrambling to finish like I thought I might be.
I realised I was thankfully cruising through to submission because—despite the stress creeping up on me last week—my plan was so comprehensive that actually writing the dissertation felt more like an editing process.
I did have to reluctantly cut out a whole chapter I had planned because I knew it’d push me over the word limit but, in hindsight, that probably saved me a lot of time.
15,000 words wasn’t too bad at all. And, however you feel about dissertations, they really are a great way to round off a degree, and the sense of achievement you feel after submitting it… priceless.
I mean, you’re never that happy about it—you know you could have done better, you probably noticed a spelling mistake two minutes after the deadline passed, and you still have no idea about your grade—but you’re relieved, at least.
And my dissertation grade isn’t the only result I’ll be waiting for in the coming weeks, because a few days ago I sent off my AncestryDNA kit to find out more about my ethnic background.
Of course, I know I’m Turkish Cypriot—but I also predicted a while back that I have some Sudanese ancestry too (which showed up in my cousin’s DNA results, actually).
Whilst I knew at least one relative—my great-great-grandmother on my mum’s side—was from Africa, we had no idea where in particular she was from. But my research about Afro Cypriots for one of my university modules informed me that most Black Cypriots have Sudanese heritage.
What’s interesting about this for me is—if my DNA does in fact confirm that Sudanese heritage—it means I have ancestors, only separated from me by a matter of decades, who spoke the language I decided to start learning and—of course—start a blog about.
Pretty cool, I say.
Anyway, I’ll have to wait quite a while for those results, and my final university grades.
For next week, I have a little grammar post planned, so stay tuned and I’ll see you soon!
!في أمان الله
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Wow this is pretty cool. I would love to check my ancestry too but for some irrational reason I’m afraid to let these testing companies have access to my DNA information. xD