Suddenly I see... this is what I want to be...
I've slaved over this (silly) three-page response for nearly two weeks now.
Maybe slaved isn't such a good word... more like fretted.
I read the prompt we were to respond to as soon as it came to me. I took notes. (By the way, this is a 10-ish sentence, 3 teeny paragraph prompt. Go write 3 pages of non-fluffed, soul-searching material on it. And throw in how our program will make you fabulous. Thanks.) I started to type.
And delete.
And type.
And delete.
And shove my laptop under the bed so I could read Harry Potter whilest fretting.
And type.
And curse.
And feel inspired and type more and more until I decided it was all crap. Back to HP.
I asked some fellow students about it on Monday.
Like anyone else 1) understood or 2) got so far as to consider reading the prompt, let alone answer the questions.
Greaaaat.
So in a frenzied and panicked moment this afternoon in which I decided all I had written up to this point made no sense, did not address any of the issues at hand or questions asked, was not the soul-searching, life-changing paper my professor expects and was, in fact, nothing but a load of whining and unanswerable questions about how I would deal in a classroom in which only half the students had a basic understanding of the English language, I started to type an e-mail to my professor.
I was going to tell him (in more or less words) that on the eve of the due date, my paper was nothing more than a piece of crap loaded with annoying and somewhat invalid questions spawned by the evil worry center in my brain that often causes more harm than good, when it hit me.
I suddenly realized that I had been so fixed on the non-English speaking sentence in the prompt and non-English speaking parents in the prompt (also another sentence) that I had failed to recognize all the other issues. And what the response was really to be. And that all I had been doing was trying to rework that initial problem (why the hell I was so insistant on making that one thing work I will never know) and that is where I was getting hung up and flustered.
So I deleted the e-mail draft and took another shot at the response from a completely different view. It came out much easier than the first forced one did.
Hopefully it will earn a good grade, as it is 15% of my overall grade.
But what have we learned here?
That some things never change. Regardless of the level of education or size of the assignment, I find it near impossible to do work (quality work, anyway) that is not due in less than 36 hours. Trying to do work outside of this time frame only stresses me out and produces crap. And there is already enough crap in the world. I don't want to add more to it.
Maybe slaved isn't such a good word... more like fretted.
I read the prompt we were to respond to as soon as it came to me. I took notes. (By the way, this is a 10-ish sentence, 3 teeny paragraph prompt. Go write 3 pages of non-fluffed, soul-searching material on it. And throw in how our program will make you fabulous. Thanks.) I started to type.
And delete.
And type.
And delete.
And shove my laptop under the bed so I could read Harry Potter whilest fretting.
And type.
And curse.
And feel inspired and type more and more until I decided it was all crap. Back to HP.
I asked some fellow students about it on Monday.
Like anyone else 1) understood or 2) got so far as to consider reading the prompt, let alone answer the questions.
Greaaaat.
So in a frenzied and panicked moment this afternoon in which I decided all I had written up to this point made no sense, did not address any of the issues at hand or questions asked, was not the soul-searching, life-changing paper my professor expects and was, in fact, nothing but a load of whining and unanswerable questions about how I would deal in a classroom in which only half the students had a basic understanding of the English language, I started to type an e-mail to my professor.
I was going to tell him (in more or less words) that on the eve of the due date, my paper was nothing more than a piece of crap loaded with annoying and somewhat invalid questions spawned by the evil worry center in my brain that often causes more harm than good, when it hit me.
I suddenly realized that I had been so fixed on the non-English speaking sentence in the prompt and non-English speaking parents in the prompt (also another sentence) that I had failed to recognize all the other issues. And what the response was really to be. And that all I had been doing was trying to rework that initial problem (why the hell I was so insistant on making that one thing work I will never know) and that is where I was getting hung up and flustered.
So I deleted the e-mail draft and took another shot at the response from a completely different view. It came out much easier than the first forced one did.
Hopefully it will earn a good grade, as it is 15% of my overall grade.
But what have we learned here?
That some things never change. Regardless of the level of education or size of the assignment, I find it near impossible to do work (quality work, anyway) that is not due in less than 36 hours. Trying to do work outside of this time frame only stresses me out and produces crap. And there is already enough crap in the world. I don't want to add more to it.