it's a magical world

I think I'm really going to like this paper, once I finish taking notes and actually start writing it. Machismo and the Western man, in Death of a Salesman, True West, and M. Butterfly. Lemme get my gender studies bitch ON.

Although, really, for the record, I absolutely despise Willy Loman. I have less sympathy for him every time I read this play, and I've read it a few times over the years. Ugh. Misogynistic lying delusional bully. Maybe I just need to see a really talented actor make him sympathetic, but on the page, he's a complete jackass.

Gah, last paper EVER. I cannot get over this, I just can't. I mean, I know I'm not suited for academia, but still.

Yay, finals. At least I've surprised myself by writing a rather painless intro paragraph for this paper, complete with a thesis. I wasn't expecting that. Hopefully this bodes well for the rest of the paper, but I know better than to trust to luck.

But there is one good thing about my pathological procrastination. I started taking notes earlier today, and I know that by the deadline tomorrow at 5pm, it will all be over. My suffering may be great, but at least it'll be brief.

Onwards.

One last paper to write by tomorrow afternoon, and this quarter is over. At least this one is for my Problems in the Study of Sexuality class and, therefore, is all about the gay. *waves pompoms*

I'd like to do NaNo, still, but I have a B.A. due in the first week of December, plus assorted other papers and projects. So school wins out over NaNo, I guess. Especially knowing that if I tried NaNo in spite of everything else, I'd wind up giving up halfway through when the college crunch inevitably sets in. Better not to start if I know I'm going to have to give it up in the middle. Maybe next year.

"The Jewels of the Sea" and its accompanying essay got an A- in my Tolkien course. The prof raved about the story. :)

The past three days have consisted of nothing but paper-writing, and it looks like I'll be pulling my third all-nighter in a row tonight. But I just can't focus on this last essay. Including fic (which, remember, was written as part of a final project for my Tolkien class), I've written 35+ pages of finals since Sunday, and there are only six to seven more but I just. Can't I take one lousy night off?

And the one due tomorrow is by far the least interesting to me. Woe.

It may well be crap, but I certainly can't tell. At least most of it is different crap than in the draft. It's also a page shorter than it's supposed to be, but when it's a difference between 19 and 20 pages, I don't think the profs will care all that much, and fuck it, I'm out of things to say.

To do: print out, put in profs' boxes, grab breakfast, GO TO SLEEP.

Good morning.

Nine hours and fifteen pages to go. Woot.

My B.A. critical paper, half of the B.A. entire, which I am currently writing even though I'm only a second-year, due to being in Ireland next year when I would normally have to write it, is due on Monday at 9am. I got the draft back -- from one of the two profs -- a week ago. She ripped it apart. Well, I haven't taken a single critical class in my major yet, what the hell was she expecting? I've never written a paper even remotely like this before, and I'm totally unprepared, because I'm a second-year and with the massive amounts of gen ed requirements at this school, I haven't had a chance to take the sort of classes that would prepare me for this. Oh, yeah, and I didn't know I was going to have to write it this quarter until, um, the end of last quarter. So my draft is godawful, and her comments, while good at ripping it to shreds, aren't entirely constructive in that I'm not sure how to salvage this thing. And the other prof didn't even get the draft, because apparently my e-mail fucked up sending it, and he never took a minute to tell me oh, by the way, never got your draft, mind resending it? So I sent him the draft from my school e-mail account (instead of gmail).

That was all last Thursday.

This week, I signed up for the prof who had read my draft's office hours. On Tuesday. I showed up, and she said there was a mix-up, she had another appointment, e-mail her to set up another time, and closed the door in my face. Yesterday, I had work all day, and couldn't meet with her, so I e-mailed her saying I'm free all Thursday, what time would be best for you?

No response.

No response from the prof I resent the draft to, either.

Final paper due in less than four days.

So I just sent off e-mails to both of them, basically begging to meet and discuss the draft, which, by the way, is my B. fucking. A., which is a large part in determining whether I graduate with honors or, hell, at all. Which I am grossly unprepared for, seeing as I wasn't supposed to write it for another year. And if they don't get back to me by tomorrow? Then it's the weekend. And then it's Monday, 9am, and the damn thing is due.

I'll wait until tomorrow afternoon, and if nothing happens, I start pleading for extension. Or, better yet, for this paper to be scaled down and count only as the final paper for the class, and to write the B.A. critical component while in Dublin. Which I think will improve it, since I'm taking only critical classes in my major next year, and will actually have a minimum of experience tackling this sort of thing.

Sorry, just needed to vent for a bit. I'm really at my wit's end here.

When under intense stress and describing the situation to friends, I tend to keep this huge, slightly crazed grin on my face. Seriously. It weirds people out sometimes. But as long as I'm smiling, eeeeeverything's gonna be juuuuust fiiiiine.

*Cheshire Cat smile*

*twitch*

20-30 page draft of BA due Thursday. Professors told me to change plays-to-be-analyzed first last Thursday, then again yesterday. I have seven pages of notes on general theory, but 400+ pages of actual reading yet to do (as was only told I had to read it, um, yesterday) and no actual paper written. I'm a lousy second-year. I'm not ready for this.

I am so fucked.

I've reached a sort of zen state, re: schoolwork. Like. No matter how frantically I study and read shit and try to take loads of notes for my Tolkien midterm tomorrow morning, I'll never be prepared for it. I just won't. There's been about 400 pages of reading per week, of which I've only managed to do about half on a regular basis, and my brain simply cannot process that much information all at once. So. I'll read a bit more, maybe jot down a few things, but I won't stay up all night worrying about it. The exam is at 9am; if I don't get enough sleep, I'll just botch it all up anyway. And I'll get through the essay somehow. I've done it before. I won't do fantastically, but I'll pass. And once my show is over, I'll have time to really work hard for the rest of the quarter, so even if I do really badly tomorrow, I'll pull through all right. This class is just an elective; it's not hugely important. And no one will ever care if I failed one lousy midterm in one lousy class once in my entire college career. This isn't a big deal.

I just want it to be over with. That's all.

My uni requires a full year sequence of the social sciences. I'm halfway through the third (and final) quarter of said sequence. And I HATE it. Over this year, I've had to read Adam Smith, Marx, Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, and more -- all these major academic names that, having now read, suppsedly make me a better person. Or at least a better-educated person. Or something.

You know what? Every single one of the texts I've read for this class has bored me to tears. I just have absolutely no interest in the social sciences, apparantly. I dread writing papers for this class, because while I'm quite capable of cranking out five pages of bullshit, I hate every second of it. I don't CARE about Marx's thoughts on economics and class relations, I don't CARE about Durkheim's notion of the self, and I DON'T FUCKING CARE about Freud and psychoanalysis. I hate this class, I hate these readings, and I hate the fact that I'm going to pull an all-nighter trying to write something passable about something I have no interest in. The papers I churn out for this class are all quite decently written and deadly dull, because I can't write anything interesting when it's on a topic that I find so hideously boring.

I have to go write about Freud now. You know what psychoanalysis was? Boring. Mind-numbingly boring. I don't even care enough about his theories to disagree with them. And I pity the professor who will have to read this paper. Because she's going to be bored by it. Really, really bored.