Recipe for a Paper

Have you heard about this Live Blogging fad? You basically do a minute-by-minute rundown on your blog of what's going on in something.

The novelty is SO overrated. Old news to me. I was already doing it Sophomore year, when Lizzie and I used to sit in the back of a particular professor's class and literally write half-minute-by-second accounts of what was going on in his class (complete with notes) to stay awake.

In the same spirit.

Recipe for a Paper

Pages of book started during Holy Week lines (a time of great preparedness)
Pages of book sorta ended 1 ½ month later (a time of great procrastination)
Middle pages unremembered and loosely underlined on trains (a time of great tiredness and boredom)
Deadline that I thought was Friday
New deadline that the teacher apparently set for Wednesday (yesterday)
Friends coming to the beach today (Thursday)
NEW New deadline personally set for Friday (hey, I was working at the school conference on Wednesday – how could I email it in while I was working?)
The consoling thought that I only work under pressure anyways
The realization (forgotten after every paper) that I have to mull something over for awhile before I can spit out coherent thoughts (time to start new blog post, this'll take awhile)
A desire to be edgy and original (rejecting all opening sentences for two hours)
Reoccurring curses that I simply cannot start writing until I have a good opening line (repeated and yet forgotten with every paper)
Doubts at why I ever thought I could write
Doubts at why I thought studying would be better than working (quickly discarded)
Spurt of confidence as I remember previous reputation as Queen English Major (i.e. Master BSer)
Inspirational food (8 crackers with spreadable cheese and salami . . . to help with all the calories the sun burned off today while changing my skin from white to florescent pink with beforementioned friends . . . maybe stretching the skin will make it less pink, blah)
Inspirational idea that maybe I should look at the book for ideas on what to write about the book (clearly from God, thoughts like that don’t just come to people)
Skimming last 50 never-read pages of book (huh. So that’s what it was all about?)
Deciding to write about Truth and Public Opinion (because things with easy answers are so boring when you’re two days past deadline)
Deciding that blog posts really do help the creative juices flow
Thinking that maybe I should actually write the second page of the paper since it’s 12.36 AM now (sleep would be nice)
Happiness pressing “Courier New” and having less than a page turn into a page and a half
Remembering old quirk that creativity doesn’t flow while using Courier New
Five minute break to ponder about writers being neurotic and having quirks and wondering if it’s a bad thing
Deciding that no one can call me an Edgar Allen Poe
Wondering who WOULD want to be like Edgar Allen Poe? (druggie on poppies)
Returning to paper, Times New Roman again
Double spacing doesn’t impede creative juices
Decide the best way to deal with the paper is to set up a scenario of “what a person with minimal intelligence would inevitably conclude if he read this book” and work through that with the hope that my own minimal intelligence can accurately guess what the reader might think . . .because somehow role-playing is going to make this a lot easier, and if the paper stinks maybe the professor will give the hypothetical near-idiot a bad grade instead of me
Finally step away from hypothetical confused person and start writing authoritatively as the voice of fact and truth (God-like omniscience and confidence)
Keane is great writing music
If I flunk out of school, I could make money heating Siberia with the body warmth emanating from my back and thighs (ouch ouch ouch why don’t I have aloe vera and why don’t I own any sacks to wear to school tomorrow?)
Adding my name, professor’s name, class, date, and maybe birthdays of all my nephews and nieces for good measure makes the paper longer
Dang, I love block quotes
Wow, having to add transitions between ideas makes the paper longer too. Things are going great.
Hmm, Facebook rejuvenation breaks take a long time . . . why is it past 3.00 AM now?
Well, there are four pages when you hit Courier New . . . here's to the language barrier and big English words impressing my professor, I'm imminently succumbing to the deep forces of compulsory symphonious adulations of a sensory perception which Hamlet referred to as the potential solution to his persistent question which has captivated the creative imaginations of English literature critics (BSers) for millennia. (I'm sleeping).