From cortisol to dopamine
Winter break went by faster than she had imagined. It felt like just yesterday that the start of the new semester was approaching, and there were less than three weeks left until her thesis deadline at the end of January.
Panqiu barely left home during the entire vacation. Zhiwei went to another state to be with her boyfriend, leaving her alone at home, dealing with documents, data, and notes from morning till night. There were no trips, no social interactions, no holidays, and hardly any bright moments.
Throughout the entire holiday, aside from a brief meeting with Lin Yue that day, she barely spoke a complete sentence to anyone. She stayed home writing her first paper—a study on the bilingual switching mechanism in inner speech—each step feeling like groping for a path in the dark.
She started taking those notes last fall. Interview recordings, experimental designs, framework rewriting... she had the materials, she had the ideas, in fact, she had too many.
The moment she turned on the computer, her mind became like a miniature theater, with all her thoughts like little characters rushing onto the stage, each vying to be the first to speak. She was just about to calmly guide the flow of the performance when—the scene instantly transformed into a bustling marketplace.
Some petty people cut in line, some argued, and some even started hitting each other on the forehead; paragraphs that were originally in a good queue started complaining: "If you don't write about me, I'm going on strike." She tried to soothe them: "Don't rush, one at a time." But her inner monologue was: Can you all shut up for ten minutes? My brain cells are limited.
Finally, after persuading some, ignoring others, and bribing some, a section was written and sent out. The result—A shouted from backstage, "How could you write him first? I'm the main character!" B sneered, "Without my groundwork, he wouldn't stand a chance." C shrugged, "I'm just providing background information, thank you." One sentence was interrupted by three; one paragraph was overturned by six. Finally, after deciding who to introduce first, that little devil backed out at the last minute: "Actually… I'm not ready yet, why don't you change it back?"
She stared at the screen, put down the keyboard, closed her eyes, and entered a brief "soul disconnection state." She felt like a host, microphone in hand, but suddenly speechless—wanting to speak, but forgetting how to speak.
She recalled a term she had learned: "overload inhibition." Too much stimulation leads to paralysis. This perfectly explains her current state—all the material is there, yet she can't move an inch.
She was most stuck on the experimental design description in the second part. She felt her description "sounded like a made-up story," and no matter how she revised it, it still resembled an unreliable undergraduate assignment. That afternoon, she stared blankly at the screen for over an hour before finally forcing herself to send Ethan a message: "I'm stuck. Could we schedule a short meeting to go over a few paragraphs?"
She hadn't expected an immediate response, given it was a holiday. But less than ten minutes later, Ethan replied: "Okay. See you on video in twenty minutes?"
That was their first online meeting during winter break. She paused, stunned, as soon as the video started. Ethan was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, with an open balcony door behind him, sunlight streaming in, and leaves rustling gently in the breeze. He didn't look like someone from the snow-covered city beneath her feet.
He didn't explain where he was, nor did he exchange many pleasantries. He simply said, "Why don't you just read out the part that's giving you the biggest headache?"
She did as he said. Then he began to break it down piece by piece: which sentences had logical inconsistencies, which words were too colloquial, and which sets of comparisons lacked empirical support. He spoke slowly but clearly, always hitting her blind spots.
They talked for less than half an hour, and he had already pointed out four or five structural problems in her document. He also suggested that she add a diagram to help readers understand the strategy path of "bilingual switching." She took notes and filled in the gaps as she went, like a parched plant receiving rain after a long drought.
After turning off the video, she sat there, her head still buzzing, but it was now "hopeful chaos." She reopened the document and re-lined the "waiting list." This time, she was a better director and a less anxious presenter.
They video-chatted twice during the entire winter break, both times at her own initiative, when she felt she couldn't hold on any longer. Each time the meeting ended, she felt as if a fog had lifted. She felt that Ethan always understood what she needed to write better than she did herself, accurately pinpointing her blind spots and showing her a way out.
Ethan rarely offered words of encouragement, but every time she turned off the video, she would subconsciously straighten her shoulders, tuck her hair behind her ears, and then reopen the document she was about to finish writing—like being pulled out of a mud pit, covered in mud, but still able to keep walking. Occasionally, she couldn't help but wonder: Was he in the South? Or the West Coast? He didn't seem to be at home. But she never asked.
The rhythm of the new semester is different from previous ones. As a seasoned student, this is her fourth and last semester of taking courses. Attending classes has become a routine for her; sitting in the classroom no longer feels awkward or nerve-wracking, and she can even be distracted by observing her classmates' expressions.
She's still a teaching assistant for Psychology 690 this semester, but the professor has changed. For Pan Qiu, this doesn't make much difference. After all, she just served as a teaching assistant for Ethan's course last semester, so she's quite familiar with the job. And the first two weeks of the semester are relatively easy for a teaching assistant.
She devoted almost all her energy to her thesis. Unlike her solitary struggle during the winter break, Ethan was back at school, and she received more and more timely guidance than during the holidays. As a result, Panqiu's writing flowed much more smoothly than before.
A week before the paper was due, she finally mustered the courage to send the first draft to Ethan. This was the first time she had presented him with a complete manuscript, and she secretly joked to herself: this must be the moment of "the ugly daughter-in-law meeting her in-laws." For a fleeting moment, she even fantasized that Ethan might praise it, saying, "It's well written."
But the result—in less than half a day, the returned manuscript was covered in annotations. The sidebars were crammed with notes, and almost no page was clean. She nearly collapsed the moment she looked at the document.
Calm down and look closely, she noticed that Ethan had directly corrected some parts, turning awkward paragraphs into concise and clear expressions. It was like telling the same story in a different way, making it seem effortless. As she read, she couldn't help but admire him: So that's how it can be said.
In many places, he simply left her with a question mark or a question like, "Do you mean A or B?"—as if forcing her to clarify her ambiguous intentions. There were also some structural suggestions that made her aware of her logical leaps.
Pan Qiu gritted her teeth and revised it bit by bit, finding it increasingly insightful and easy to understand. For those two days, she practically worked tirelessly, glued to Ethan's annotations. She revised until late at night, the document was completely reorganized, and in many places she could see traces of her own growth.
Finally, she sent the revised draft back the day before the deadline. A few hours later, Ethan replied: "You can submit it now."
Those three simple words carried immense weight for her. In an instant, all her weariness, anxiety, and doubt transformed into a genuine sense of accomplishment. For the first time, she felt that she hadn't just "gotten through," but had truly learned something. At that moment, she suddenly wanted to celebrate.
In the days following the submission of her thesis, Panqiu seemed to have been lifted up by a spring breeze, her expression light and cheerful all day. Zhiwei, noticing this, couldn't help but tease her. Holding a cup of hot tea, she looked Panqiu up and down in the living room, even deliberately circling her a couple of times, shaking her head and clicking her tongue: "Look at you, your face like a peach blossom, your eyes sparkling. Tell me honestly, have you been secretly drinking, or secretly dating?"
Pan Qiu laughed out loud, then thought for a moment and said seriously, "You're absolutely right. I just submitted my thesis, and two hormones in my body are switching roles—cortisol is leaving and dopamine is taking over. This feeling really is like being in love."
Zhi smiled so hard she almost spilled her tea: "Goodness, you've been in a bittersweet relationship with your thesis all winter break, and finally you've achieved your goal!"
Pan Qiu blushed a little at her laughter and quickly waved her hand, "No, no. Whether we can truly achieve our goal depends on the mood of the thesis reviewer."
Zhiwei covered her mouth and laughed, not forgetting to follow up: "Before the results come out, we need to add some ceremony to this bittersweet love story." She put her teacup on the table, her eyes lighting up: "Let's go shopping!"
Pan Qiu was stunned for a moment, and before she could react, Zhiwei had already grabbed her arm: "Come on, come on, while your dopamine is at its peak, we need to put it to good use."
Pan Qiu couldn't help but laugh and readily said, "Okay, let's go without further ado!"
This winter, she went from cortisol to dopamine.
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