Academic rant

[vvvexation]

Arrrgh. So I've got this history paper to write, the prompt for which is basically "talk about this book and make sure to cite these five other books in the process," and I've just discovered there's yet a seventh book (which was on the reading list but I hadn't bothered to read it yet) that does a better job of explaining all this crap than I could do on my own, or at least does it at greater length. So the good news is I can cite from or paraphrase it quite a lot, but the bad news is that means I have to read it first, and that will take a whole day that I'd planned to spend writing. At this rate I suspect I will be very glad to have budgeted more time than usual to write this thing. I've never before had so damn many things get in the way of even starting to write. This is why I prefer philosophy. Philosophy papers are straightforward; you have your source material, it's very limited and very clearly defined, you figure out what you want to say about it and then you say it. Maybe you change your mind a couple of times about what you actually want to say, but you don't have to do extra research every time you change your mind. Hell, you don't even have to cut the bits where you made arguments you suddenly don't agree with any longer--all you have to do is acknowledge that they're compelling and explain why they're nonetheless wrong.

Stupid college making me take history classes to broaden my horizons. Not that I'd mind learning this stuff if I weren't being tested on it.