I’m the bottommost snail in the middle.
The only saving grace in this week’s essay is knowing that it the last Friday CSS tutorial paper ever, which actually makes me quite sad.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t make understanding it any better. Took 40 minutes just to understand what the question was asking.
(P.S. Despite what it may look like right now, this blog is not dying. It’s just preparing to hit finals week.)
Double Double-Shot Night (Espresso + Cream)
On the water. Valencia, Spain.
Midterms aren’t suppose to hit CSS students. I do papers every week in place of the chaos of exams and huge papers, essentially trading the stress of the middle/end semester projects for a weekly snowball to the face. And I like it that way.
Except, this time, the snowballs culminated to a massive showdown, blizzard of ’78 style.
Four papers in five days, plus sudden pangs of exhaustion that are hitting my body like a gust a wind on the open seas. As I sit and work, my mind jumps, and I can’t remember what I just did anymore. Despite my genuine excitement for what I’m writing about, all I can think of is the tired radiating from my brain to my every muscle.
I’ve tried sleeping. It doesn’t go away, neither does my aching throat and stomach pains. Clearly, I’m sick with something, but today I tested negative for strep and mono. Complaining feels pointless and selfish, because everybody else is stressed right now too.
Friday feels like a world away, which at this point is a good thing, because I have far too much work to do before then.
-Here’s to hanging on.
The assignment, “Respond to the quotation.”
First four hours of work.
I love the College of Social Studies, but social theory gets me every time. Analysis of history (is eternally) > Analysis of thought, which is what this is.
How to: not do homework, a reflection on the finer art of distracting oneself when there’s work to do. I’m no procrastinator, but you really can’t just sit down and write a 15 page paper in one setting (well).
I have many’a fond memory of I’ve-been-working-on-this-paper-too-long-to-actually-write-anything-worth-reading moments, which is the reason study breaks were invented.
I remember quite vividly that Wednesday night last fall when we were all doing our reading on 4th floor of PAC, and we tried calling 1-800-MyCustomSnuggie to see about getting snuggies with our yet to be designed CSS coat of arms. (Turns out they’re only open during business hours.)
Then, there was that night when I found out that it only costs 60 cents more to get extra pineapple on your Dominos Pizza, and, perhaps more importantly, that PAC is listed as a delivery location on their website.
Back when I believed that I didn’t actually possess sufficient quantities of energy to make it to that 2pm paper deadline every Friday, I ran the 5 flights of stairs between the basement and the CSS lounge at about 3am.
I could never forget those moments when lightening strikes (which despite being supposedly random happened every Thursday night between 9pm and midnight). I would run into the hall/classroom/lounge to tell someone, and inevitably run into my friend Joon (don’t know why). I’d excitedly tell him my thesis, and he always told me it didn’t make sense/wasn’t true/I couldn’t defend it/etc. Then we’d fight about it for somewhere between 5-45 minutes, which always helped me iron out my supporting points. Afterwards, I’d go home write 🙂
With no lounge or friend like Joon to distract me, I’ve been left to my own devices here in Spain. Last week, I took to memorizing all of the Spanish subtitles to my favorite youtube video, and today I tweezed my eyebrows (slightly less impressive, I know).
Point being, I’m 6 pages in, and the novelty of writing in English is melting away. I think it’s good though. It’s hard when you don’t fully understand the expectations, but something tells me that making it through Professor Elphick’s history tutorial has prepared me for whatever paper Spain is throwing me this week.
And so, on that note, I think my break is over…back to work….
She said, "This crepe place is amazing!" So we went. Turns out the guy behind the counter the first time just thought she was amazing, because we got way less chocolate than she did before!
After spending a great day in the city with Veronica (with lots of shopping) and celebrating the 12th of October (it’s like the 4th of July here) by attending the Parade of Arms, I got to work today.
There’s something about that soft beat of my fingers on the keyboard; it feels so good.
I’m still only 4 pages in on my 12 page analysis for Gladiators class, but I don’t even care. Who knew this much time away from CSS could make me ache to write papers like this? I’m actually lamenting the fact that I can’t insert my own long-thought-over, nuanced argument (the kind that usually takes me the entire week to come up with) along with my analysis of the text.
It’s a little read and repeat, but at least I can bring in my own sources. I’ve already brought in literary criticisms, Ricardo, Malthus, forwards, and notes from appendices. I was so excited to apply my knowledge of nineteenth century British corn laws to my analysis of Communist ideals in a historical fiction novel set in 71 BC. (shout out: CSS econ tutorial)
Gotta love the multidisciplinary approach.
This weekend, the Vassar/Wes program is heading to Extremadura, one of Spain’s autonomous communities. I can’t say that I actually know anything about the place, other than I’m eating monkfish, which was formerly known as the poor man´s lobster, but is now a luxury item. So that’ll be cool, when else am I going to get to try it?
All to say, I will not have a computer all weekend, because this is a three day trip, and I don’t have my stand-in for Mackenzie (the fried hard drive) yet. I’ll post when I get back.
A few of the many planes in the parade
After a rather long and throughly un-exhilarating, yet still extremely stressful mess of paperwork to painful too talk about, I think I’ve finally caught up on boring, logistical work. What’s next? The challenges of ordering photos for a display board that is going with me to Texas, but is still in Indiana. You wouldn’t think it’d be that hard, but…it is.
P.S. – I saw cockroach again today and didn’t even jump; I just ran away. However, I still am too afraid to get close enough to kill them. I’d google it to find the most successful and least gross method, but I’m sure that it will pull up images that will plague me. All this is to say, if you have any suggestions as to how I should deal with this problem (read: how to kill cockroach in the least gross way possible), please comment.
Fall hard, Fall forward...Fall first 