things were going well.
Successes at school and work had me pretty elated. Life was working out really well. Or rather, I was doing a pretty good job handling everything I have to do. But now the first paper of the semester is due tomorrow, and I'm only halfway through it. I'm only required to write a mere two pages, single spaced, and it's taken me about 12 hours at this point to write the first page. It's due 11 hours from now. If I continue at this pace I'll never make it. I've been paraphrasing the entire thing. I'm at Jen's house because she said she would proof read it when it's finished. At this point she'll be asleep when I'm finished. I came into the living room and told her about my slow progress and she told me I'm doing it all wrong, and that I know how to do it right, and that I don't listen when she gives me advice. She told me I'm being nit-picky and agonizing over every word, and that I need to read the whole thing and put it in my own words, which is apparently different from paraphrasing. Apparently the way I'm supposed to be doing this is the easiest kind of writing to do. That's an exact quote or a paraphrase from Jen. The easiest kind of writing to do. I've done it before. I've written papers with only one source without having to paraphrase the entire thing. The thing is, I can't seem to be able to do it with this one. Like I don't remember how, or I've developed some kind of counterproductive mental block. I did read the whole thing, but the problem is that I read it so thoroughly that when i try to think of my own words, all I come up with is theirs. I labored agonizingly (and oh so nit-pickingly) for twelve hours paraphrasing it bit by bit, absolutely sure that I was doing something wrong, and completely seemingly unable to put it into my own words as a whole. So when Jen confirmed my fears, and acted like it was perfectly simple, (which I'm sure it is,) and told me I never listen to her advice, despite the fact that I was actually desperate for her advice when I walked into the room, I burst into tears, and have been crying ever since. I can't seem to stop, but that's not abnormal for me. Not that i cry all the time, but when I do, it's often quite hard to stop. She said I'm never going to get through college like this, and I'm pretty sure she's right. Not like this. Not spending 12 hours on one page of information. She told me the other day that she's been, "verbally beating the shit out of" me for years in order to thicken my skin so I won't get crushed in college. She said it had worked some, but now I'm in college, and I'm crushed. Way to be over-dramatic, but it's true. At the moment I'm feeling pretty defeated, and not emotionally resilient at all.