Self Compliments

At the end of 2016, I had the idea to write some compliments about myself. It came from a desire to make sure to capture my self-esteem (while I had some) and find a way to preserve it, in case I needed reminding in the future of my worth and what I am capable of. I started writing some positive adjectives about myself, as I thought of them. Then, I consulted lists of positive adjectives online and added to my list, finding more adjectives that I thought fit me. (A lot of these were variations of the same idea, or even synonyms of each other. But I wrote them down anyway, just so the list looked lengthy and very impressive.)

I thought it would be good to start 2017 off on the right foot and make sure I reminded myself on a consistent basis what some of those adjectives were. I divided up my "compliments" into 52 groups, one for each week of the year, and then I set up emails to myself through the website FutureMe.org, which lets you schedule emails to be sent to yourself at a later date, sending one email to my inbox every Monday.

In the future, I don't think I would do it this way again. Often, the email arrives in the middle of a bunch of spam emails and I barely pay attention to it. Even when I do pay attention and take the time to really read it and absorb the words, I find that it has little impact on a day when I already feel confident. Instead of scheduling them in advance, then, I think a better idea would have been to print them out and cut them up and put them in a jar or something. Then, when a time came when I needed to hear some encouragement, I could reach in there and find one to read.

In general, though, I do think it's a good exercise to do, and I would recommend it to anyone who struggles with self-esteem, even if only on an occasional basis. Take the time on a day when you're feeling good, and write compliments to yourself. This works on two levels. First, it's always nice to hear good things about yourself and be reminded of times you had success in the past, things you're proud of, positive qualities intrinsic to your personality, etc. Second, seeing words that you yourself wrote in the past will remind you that you once believed in the words you wrote (and therefore can believe in them again). I know my first reaction when I hear a compliment is to be embarrassed, or to brush it off as just "somebody being nice" and not "somebody actually telling the truth." But that reaction doesn't happen when they're compliments to me, written by me, that get sent to my email by me, and aren't seen by anyone else but me. There's no one else around, so I don't have to feel embarrassed, or worry that if I show too much gratitude for the compliment I'll somehow be less deserving of it (because I guess my subconscious thinks that only humble people deserve love?). Furthermore, because I picked out these adjectives and wrote these compliments to myself, I have to believe them and take them seriously, because I already have believed them and taken them seriously in the past. It sounds confusing, I know. But somehow, it just works.

It does feel a little silly, writing what are essentially love letters to yourself. But they really are helpful, especially if you're someone who always focuses on the negative, ruminating and beating yourself up over every failure or mistake you've made, but neglecting to take the time to acknowledge successes and challenges you've overcome. It's like you're retraining your brain to focus on good things, too, by purposefully doing just that.

Here are some samples of these compliment letters I've written to myself, in case you want to use these as a jumping-off point to show yourself some self-love as well:

Don't forget, you are calm, calming, and capable! You are welcoming, worthwhile, and worthy. You are self-reliant, creative, and persistent in whatever you do. You are a good person, and you have value. 

Don't forget, you are considerate and consistent! You always do the best you can at the time with what you know. Your confidence, self-esteem, and inner wisdom are increasing with each day. You are a good person, and you have value. 

Don't forget, you are wanted, warm-hearted, and warranted! You are thankful, thorough, and thoughtful. You play a big role in your own career success. You are a good person, and you have value. 

Don't forget, you are deserving, determined, and devoted! You are scholarly, self-disciplined, and self-governing. You draw from your inner strength. You are a good person, and you have value. 

Don't forget, you are artistic, awake, and authentic! You are selfless (to a fault) but working towards self-empowerment. You are self-expressive. You are unique; you feel good about being alive and being you. You are a good person, and you have value. 

Don't forget, you are grateful and grounded! You are prolific, and you are progressive. You matter and what you have to offer this world also matters. You are a good person, and you have value. 

Don't forget, you are merciful, mindful, and multi-dimensional! You are a better person for the hardships you have gone through with your family and friends. You are a good person, and you have value. 

Don't forget, you are compassionate and composed! You are necessary and needed. You choose friends who approve of you and love you; you actively work at bettering your life. You are a good person, and you have value. 

Don't forget, you are nurturing, nourishing, and nourished! You are affectionate and accomplished. You let go of worries that drain your energy, and channel them into creative endeavors. You are a good person, and you have value.

Don't forget, you are illustrious, improving, and incomparable! You are hopeful and helpful. You are self-reflective and capable of recognizing and moving beyond your mistakes. You are a good person, and you have value.

Don't forget, you are patient, peaceful, and perceptive! You are knowledgable and kind. You make smart, calculated plans for your future. You are a good person, and you have value.

Don't forget, you are ambitious and articulate! By allowing yourself to be happy, you inspire others to be happy as well. You are a sunshine-spreader! You are a good person, and you have value.

Don't forget, you are disciplined, driven, and durable! You are learned, but always willing to learn more. You are capable of loving all of who you are. You are a good person, and you have value.

As you can see, a lot of them get a little repetitive. The point is not to make every note completely different - just to find different ways of telling yourself the same things over and over again, until they start to stick and you see them for yourself.

I followed the same basic pattern every time. By starting with "don't forget" I reminded myself that what followed was going to be something I had at one point believed; if I hadn't thought these things about myself lately, it was just because I'd forgotten, not because they were no longer true. I then continued with a string of adjectives, pulled from the list of adjectives I'd created for myself. (I alphabetized the list, so when I copy-pasted three or four adjectives from my list, they were already in fun, alliterative phrases!)

Then, I included an affirmation, from lists I found online. Things like "You are capable of moving beyond your mistakes" or "You are a better person for the hardships you've endured" or "You feel good about being alive and being you." I often find it hard to think of these kinds of affirmations in "I" statements (as in, "I am capable of moving beyond my mistakes" or "I am a better person" or "I feel good about being alive and being me"), because they feel more false that way. I start to second-guess them: "But I don't feel capable today, right now! This is all just a lie!" For me, using "I" opens up chances for me to search for holes to poke through them; whereas, if I word it with a "you" instead, and pretend that I'm talking to myself and telling myself these things, I'm more likely to accept them. Of course those sentiments aren't always true; but they are always possible, and that's the point. Even if you don't feel capable right now, you still are capable, because you've been capable in the past and will be again in the future. By using "you," I find it easier to accept it as a statement that could be true, and that therefore is true - instead of using "I" and wondering if it is true, and therefore concluding that maybe it can't be. (But all that is really just personally preference.)

Finally, I close with "You are a good person and you have value," because this is the conclusion I want to reach every time. I'm a good person because I try to be a good person. I'm a good person because of all the positive qualities I have, and the effort I put in to working on myself. I have value, because I am a person. I deserve the good things that happen to me, or the things that work out in my favor, because every person does. I am allowed to acknowledge and bask in successes I've achieved; I am allowed to be happy.

Self-Love

In previous posts I talked about creating eight "daily affirmations" to remind me of the things I believe that I often forget to apply to myself. Today I'd like to share the last two I haven't mentioned.

7. I will be a goddess to myself today. I will be my friend.

8. I deserve to be happy.

As I've mentioned previously, I often treat others better than I treat myself. If a friend came to me saying that she thought she was incapable of being assertive, or that it wasn't worth it to try; if a friend came to me saying that her emotions didn't matter; if a friend came to me saying that she hated who she was or where she was at in her life, I would do everything I could think of to try to convince her otherwise. I would tell her she is capable of assertiveness - it's just hard when you're not used to trying. I would tell her that it is worth striving for happiness, that her emotions do matter. And I would list all the things I love about her. I would remind her of the things she does right and the things she's found success at.

But when it comes to being so kind to myself, I struggle. That's what this affirmation is about - reminding me that I do have the capacity for kindness - I do it for other people all the time - and that it's time I turn a bit of that compassion on myself.

The wording of the first part of that affirmation is more personal, words that mean something to me. (The second part - the I will be my friend - is decidedly universal, regardless of spiritual beliefs.) What I mean by "I will be a goddess" is that I will take on the role of the God of my childhood. Not that I am a god, or think I should be, but that the sorts of things I turned to God to as a child I now have to rely on myself to provide, now that I do not believe in any supernatural deity.

When I was young, I was terrified of thunderstorms. (I still don't like them.) As I got older, I felt embarrassed that I retained this childish fear (an embarrassment initiated by my dad specifically telling me that I was "too old" to still be scared), and so, during one night of thunderstorms in which I could not fall asleep, I tried to logic my fear away.

I realized that my fear of thunderstorms was really a fear of death - that I was afraid it would spawn tornados that would demolish our house and kill me. I further concluded that there was no reason to fear death, because I would surely go to Heaven. I wasn't particularly pleased with the idea of dying at a young age, when there were still so many things I wished to accomplish in my life, but it brought me some comfort to believe that if I were to die young, it would be because of God's plan for me, and that as long as I "tried my best" every day on earth and consistently worked toward my lifelong goals, I had nothing to be ashamed of if I did not complete said goals in time (for how was I to know when I'd live my final day?).

I was able to stop being scared because I knew God was 1) looking out for me, and 2) that he would gladly "forgive me" if I misstepped, or fell short of the standards I held myself to.

Without believing in God, though, I have to find those comforts elsewhere. And that's where I come in. Now, I have to look out for myself (self-advocacy, as I said in a previous post), and be willing to "forgive myself" for falling short (or to convince myself that "There is nothing to forgive.")

This is also what friends do - they look out for each other and they forgive each other - which is why I included the second part of that affirmation. Some days it might be more helpful to think of myself as "acting as my own god" (or goddess, as the case may be); other days it might be more helpful to think of myself as my own friend - whichever way of looking at it gets the message across that I need to be kinder to myself is the one I'll focus on for that particular day, to get me through that particular trial.

8. I deserve to be happy.

The last one, I think, is pretty self-explanatory. No, I will not always be happy, nor should I expect to. But I do not deserve any unhappiness that comes my way, nor should I actively (or passively) prevent myself from being happy just because I believe my happiness isn't worth the effort.

It is worth the effort to take care of myself, to practice self-love.

My Station

In previous posts I talked about creating eight "daily affirmations" to remind me of the things I believe that I often forget to apply to myself. Today I'd like to share two more of those.

5. I'm not "just" anything. Where I am right now is important.

6. I will strive for movement today.

Both of these affirmations deal with "my station" - that is, where I am and where I want to be.

Source for these definitions of "station" - dictionary.com

My greatest insecurities come from a fear that I am not where I am "supposed to be" - that I am somehow following short of a standard. (What standard? Whose standard? Often, only my own.)

That adults are supposed to have certain successes - that I haven't had. That women are supposed to feel something or behave in a certain way - that I do not. That humans are supposed to have certain priorities - that I don't. That, at twenty-six I'm supposed to be at a certain place in my life, in my career, etc. - and I am not at that place.

So this first affirmation acknowledges that the idea of a "standard" is ridiculous - that where I am is where I am, and little good comes from belittling it.

First of all, if you ask 10 different people to define success, you'll get 10 different answers. There is no one standard that everyone agrees to (nor should there be). Sure, I have expectations about how my life might play out, but those expectations are not the same as the expectations my family might have for me, or my friends, or my therapist, or a stranger on the street, or someone from another country or culture or religion or historical era. I am who I am - and though I have some say in who I'll be in the future, I can't control everything, and to assume I can is not only blatantly false, but also decidedly unhelpful.

It is often in the realm of my career that I use this language. I say - I'm "just" a substitute teacher (well, I'm not really a substitute teacher at all anymore, having purposefully not paid for my sub permit this school year in an effort to focus on writing and art, but I did say this up until a few months ago). I'm "just" an aspiring artist, or "just" an aspiring author.

When I worked as a cashier/customer service worker in a clothing/accessories store a few years ago, and someone asked what I did, I said, "Oh, I just work in retail."

When I say "just" like that, what I mean is that I see where I am as a temporary station. I did not want to linger in the field of retail, or as a substitute teacher. I saw those as jobs I would - hopefully - outgrow. And while it's probably a good thing to believe that I have the ability to "outgrow" that position and "right" things in my life that I am dissatisfied with (it does indicate a certain confidence that I often seem to lack), it also does little to bolster my present self-esteem, if I constantly belittle where I'm at.

It also belittles others who are at a similar station in their own lives. For instance, skinny women who complain about the way they look with comments like "I shouldn't eat this," or "Does this outfit make my ass look too big?" not only hurt themselves with their disparaging comments, but also anyone else who may be listening and comparing their bodies to hers. I knew someone in high school who made comments like this all the time about herself - even though she was very athletic (a cheerleader, a dancer) and quite obviously skinnier than me. If she thought she was fat - what was I supposed to think about myself?

I do not think she - or other women who fall into the same trap - meant to be cruel. I certainly wasn't trying to imply that all retail workers were lowly, unfortunate souls when I said off-handedly, "Oh, I just work in retail." But imply I did. I said it to indicate that it was not where I wanted to be, that it was beneath me, and where I thought my station was - but anyone else working in retail hearing me say that would have to wonder - "And what about me? Does she think this job is not beneath me? Does she think she's better than I am?"

It so happens that the someone who asked me what I did was a woman who worked at Haven, a local domestic violence shelter that I was getting ready to volunteer at. I told her "Oh, I just work in retail," and she immediately said, "No! Not 'just'! Where you are right now is important!"

I didn't want to believe her. I wanted to be too good for retail work to be important to me, what with my college degree and years of good grades. But I understand now (a few years later) what she really meant. It wasn't so much that I was doing my customer service job because it was important (though it is - where would our country be without minimum-wage workers?) - it was that my customer service job was important because I was doing it. And I am important.

It's hard to believe I have value when I say the things I devote my time to don't.

The second affirmation of this pair might seem to contradict number five, but let me explain how it doesn't.

6. I will strive for movement today.

The fact was, I saw where I was as a temporary position. I was unhappy there - because I didn't let myself be happy there, perhaps, because I thought it was beneath me; or because it was actually something I wasn't particularly interested in doing long-term.

There were things I wanted to change, things about my life I wanted to do better. I think this will probably always be the case for me, because I have a strong drive to succeed. Once I meet one goal, I create another. Even if my career were to get to the point I currently want to attain, once I got to said point I don't think I would find it as satisfying as I imagine it now. I am always wanting to go farther, to find more success.

So perhaps it's surprising that I need an affirmation to remind myself to strive for movement, when it's something I'm so willing to do. The key to this affirmation is not the word strive, but the word today. It can be hard (when I'm belittling my current station) to believe I can ever get out of the "rut" I'm in and achieve the things I want to achieve. Fear, anxiety, and complacency (defeatism?) can discourage me from attempting change (as I talked about in a previous post). My goals often seem too far away.

And that's why daily movement is so crucial. Focus on the smaller steps that can be taken today, every day.

Learning to be assertive isn't going to solve my career problems - but practicing assertiveness every day will help me stay on the track I want to be on. And anyway, assertiveness isn't something learned overnight, but gradually, with practice.

Writing blog entries like this one is another way of stoking my self-confidence, which in turn might help with my career goals down the line.

Striving for movement every day does not mean that where I am is not important. I can consciously commend my current station while also trying to alter it. In fact, if I do a little movement every day, it actually validates where I am - because being where I am and who I am today helped me take today's step.

I just have to think of my adult life in the same way that I thought of my student life. I did not belittle the role of student when I was in it. I saw it as temporary, as a stepping stone for where I wanted to be, but still appreciated (even loved) where I was in the meantime. Now that I've graduated (several years hence), I mistakenly believe that I need to be satisfied with my station and become increasingly disappointed when I'm not. But isn't all of life a learning experience - not just childhood, or adolescence, or college? Humans still grow and change as adults - and to believe that I'm "better" than that, that I should already, at 26, be my best self, is to vastly underestimate (yes, underestimate) myself.

If I am the atheist I claim to be, if I believe there is no God, then what could be "better" than to be human, to experience the human condition?

Silk Caution & Poisoned Rose

Alright, so in yesterday's blog post, I started talking about my thesis from 2010. I hope this topic is interesting to you, because I plan to say a lot more on the topic, and go through all of the paintings I created for it. Today I'll be looking at the second and third paintings I completed for the thesis: Silk Caution and Poisoned Rose.

As you may remember from yesterday, my thesis was born because I both yearned for self-confidence in my body and my sexuality, and felt that such self-confidence was out of my reach.

I was raised in a Baptist church in Michigan. I even attended a private Christian academy for Kindergarten and first grade, and it was in Kindergarten that I "accepted Jesus as my personal savior." In fifth grade, I won a "Teen Study Bible" for memorizing the names of the books of the Bible and reciting them to an adult Sunday School class. I was 10. The Teen Study Bible had several glossy, colorful pages sprinkled throughout that offered Biblical advice on topical issues like friends, family, school, etc. - and the very first of these colorful distractions was bright orange and had the word SEX in big neon green letters at the top of the page. Unsurprisingly, it taught abstinence. There were a few FAQs at the bottom of the page where kids (or adults writing copy, posing as kids) asked how important it really was to save themselves for marriage, and what to do if someone was trying to pressure them into having sex, but there were no FAQs that might actually be helpful to someone who might have had real questions.

This sort of attitude about sex was the attitude I continued to hear about once I graduated into our church's middle school youth group. Sex was always presented as this Thing That Was to Be Avoided At All Costs, a Thing That Might Accidentally Happen To You If You're Not Careful Enough and Stand Too Close to a Boy, a Thing That Is Supposedly Wonderful and Amazing - But Only Allowed For Married, Heterosexual Adults. I was pretty terrified of the whole idea of sex, to be honest. It wasn't a big sacrifice for me to "pledge" myself to God, to promise that I wouldn't have sex before marriage. Sex wasn't something I actually wanted to do. I asked my parents for a silver ring with the words "True Love Waits" engraved on it. I read Christian books. I did not masturbate. I half-heartedly tried to use tampons but couldn't figure out how to get them inside my vagina, so I stopped trying - even when that meant my mom had to send my (male) gym teacher an email to explain that it wasn't fair for him to jeopardize my straight-A average because I couldn't wear tampons. During our swimming unit, I had to sit out for one week out of every four, and then I had to come in to school at 6 AM every Wednesday to make up the hours I'd missed while I was bleeding into my sanitary pads on the bleachers.

I saw sex (in general) and my vagina (specifically) as shameful and mortifying. Still, I happily, willingly, and actively participated in my own sexual repression because I thought it's what I was supposed to do, what good girls did, what good Christians did. I was even kind of perversely proud at the extent of my vagina's "purity" - that it had never even been besmirched by my own fingers or a tampon.

And then I took a Humanities class my senior year of high school, and I learned about other religions and historical attitudes and I started considering the negative side of gender roles for the first time. And then, as I grew enlightened and liberated in my thinking, I also grew ashamed and mortified of my shame and mortification. I decided everything I had grown up believing was wrong. I decided I wanted to figure out how to use tampons and I wanted to have sex and I wanted to explore my body and find confidence in my sexuality and I wanted to experience an orgasm. I also decided that my Christian upbringing was at least partly at fault for the attitudes I had about myself and my sexuality, a realization that led to (but was not the sole reasoning behind) my decision to step away from Christianity. I realized that I no longer believed in God. I tried to have faith in myself, instead. But I had no precedent in these new life changes, and I struggled to find my confidence - in many areas, but especially in my sexuality. I met my husband as a freshman in college. He too was inexperienced. We were each other's first relationship.

With all that back story, I think it becomes a lot clearer why I might have painted the watercolors I did - not only did I look at the first watercolor in what would become my undergraduate honors thesis and interpreted the patterns on rose petals as tattoos on flesh, but I was jealous of that rose's self-expression and felt that my own rose could never get away with such pretty decoration.

The next painting I created was Silk Caution. (Available for purchase through my Etsy shop.)

"Silk Caution" by Andrea Arbit - Watercolor painting on paper, 22"x30" 

Instead of patterns, this rose is branded with yellow police tape reading "Caution" and "Do Not Enter." The rose is not actually wrapped in the tape; the actual rose petals themselves display the ribbons like birthmarks. I think of them as literally part of the petals, like the caution tape was manufactured and maintained by the rose. Maybe the rose was encouraged to grow that way, maybe she was cultivated by gardeners to display that particular message, but the message still comes, at least in part, from the rose itself. It was not forcibly held down and wrapped in tape. Like me, it participated in its own repression - because it was taught to do so.

Next to the rose is a spiral of silk, mimicking the shape of the rose. Other watercolorists in my studio class interpreted these dual circles as making the shape of an infinity sign, or as forming a pair of women's breasts. It was also noted that comparing the rose with silk made the rose seem even more soft, more delicate than it might already be, and that it was strange to see something so harmless covered in "caution" warnings. I was asked if the caution tape was in place to protect the viewer from the rose or to protect the rose from the viewer. When I was painting it, I'd thought only of protecting the rose. I identified with the rose. I imagined that it had put the caution tape on its own petals, as a way to avoid the world.

In my thesis, I said that the caution tape might be unjustifiably used, that perhaps the rose and viewer do not need to be protected from each other. But now I question where caution tape even can be "unjustifiably" used. Who decides what's justifiable? Does it matter if there are "real" dangers - to either the rose or the viewer - if either of them perceive the real possibility of dangers? Is it not enough for the rose to want the safety net of wearing that tape - does she need a specific trauma she's responding to, a specific reason? And is it not worthwhile for the viewer to be warned that things might not always be what they seem - even if, in this case, the rose is what it seems to be: a flesh-colored flower, harmless and meek and not inherently dangerous?

"Poisoned Rose" by Andrea Arbit - Watercolor painting on paper, 20"x22"

For the next painting I created, Poisoned Rose (also available for purchase through my Etsy shop), I changed the color palette so that the rose would actually look unsafe. The green and purple and yellow look like bruises, like sickness, like poison. In my companion written thesis, I again asked the reader to consider who put the caution tape on the rose, and what the intent of the caution tape was. Even though this rose looks more dangerous, that doesn't mean it actually is. I wrote: "The wings of a non-poisonous butterfly might mimic the bright colors of poisonous butterflies as a survival tactic. Might the rose be green to ward off potential predators?"

Of course, this doesn't apply only to sex, to sexuality, or even only to women. Many of us put up walls to hide behind. We might project a "don't come near me" vibe in new, uncertain situations, until we get a feel for the other people around us and whether or not they can be trusted. As an extreme introvert with avoidance and low self-confidence issues, I do this a lot. I stay in a corner. I don't reach out. When I am spoken to, I keep my answers short, on the verge of impolite. I'm not trying to be mean, or rude. I do it because I'm anxious, or apprehensive, or afraid. I do it because I'm not used to acting extroverted, because I feel comfortable and safe doing what I've always done. I do it to protect myself, even when I don't actually want to protect myself so much from life that I miss out on experiencing the joys of life around me. I might even sometimes do it because of a misguided attempt to protect others from having to get to know me, if I'm riding a particularly cruel wave of self-imposed, self-sabotaging low self-esteem. I don't always know why I do it. Maybe this rose doesn't know either.

I named my thesis painting series "Hesitant, Hurt, and Healing Flowers." These two paintings fit in to the "Hesitant" category. We don't know what - if anything - is actually "wrong" with them, but we are told to stay away. In that sense, these two paintings are me. In other, later paintings, I show evidence of physical damage; the roses in other paintings have been victims of abuse or rape or female genital mutilation. They are not hesitant - often they are so freshly wounded that they don't really have the opportunity to be hesitant just yet - but if, in the future they chose to be hesitant, I don't think any viewer would blame them.

But what about those of us, like myself, who have no real, obvious trauma that they are working to come to terms with? What about those of us who are uncomfortable with themselves, with their bodies, with their sexuality, with any displays of confidence - not because they've been obviously abused, but simply because of how they were brought up, or because of something ingrained in their genetics or their brain chemistry that is keeping them from being their happiest, most confident self? I have to remind myself often that I do not need a concrete reason to feel something. My feelings have value. I don't need to have been raped to be cautious and hesitant with my body; I don't need to be struggling with PTSD in response to a specific trauma. That is not to say that my "issues" are comparable to someone else's "issues," someone who <i>does</i> have a history of assault or sexual trauma to deal with. But that also doesn't mean my "issues" don't matter in their own right.

It's like systems of privilege. As a white woman I am not going to experience the same discrimination that a woman of color will in her lifetime. I am not trying to compare mine to hers. In fact, I am actively trying not to compare mine to hers. Because when I compare mine to hers, I know she "wins." She will have it worse off than me. And so then I think - how can I complain about A, B, and C, when there are other people who have to deal with X, Y, and Z, which are so much worse. So then I feel bad about feeling bad, because I feel like I don't have a right to feel bad. But using my privilege to beat myself over the head like that doesn't help anyone.

Six years later, I'm still a "hesitant" flower. But I'm trying to work on being less hesitant - another reason for going so "full disclosure" and talking about all this in a blog. I want to better myself by sharing myself, by removing the caution tape I've put up over the years, by dismantling it layer by layer.

Don't forget to check out my Etsy shop for these paintings and others in this thesis series!