10 December 1998

Ain't No Nada

I just realized that one of my big papers is due tomorrow, with no possibility of an extension. Therefore I am skimming through books and typing like mad.

There isn't a precise page requirement. Though the professor woudl be very put out if it was less than ten. Basically she was saying that anywhere from 10 to 30 pages is fine, as long as we say everything we need to say and say it well.

Upon getting questions about format and what the goal of this paper is, she eyed us all with her most piercing look and said something to the effect of "It will be different for each one of you. Make it yours. This is your chance to explore the ideas we've discussed in this class and show me that you've learned something."

I believe that *gulp* was the most audible sound in the classroom at that pronouncement. I think that, even at the graduate level, there is little that students fear more, than an unstructured assignment. You sit and worry about whether you've done enough, if you've gone overboard, if you've covered enough of the themes brought out in class, if you've garnered enough brownie points with the professor to go out on an esoteric limb without totally capsizing your grade.

So here I sit at 9:30pm on a chilly December night, pondering the methodological strengths and weaknesses of a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine in relation to the books we read in class this semester.

I have scribed four and one quarter pages so far. I began sometime around 8pm after arriving back at work from the final meeting of another class. I am tired, I am unfocused.

But I am, to be perfectly vulgar, nailing this sucker.

Who knows where I'm getting all these ideas from, but they're simply pouring directly from brain to paper in a fluid stream. It feels great. I've banged out nearly a third of this paper without even really thinking about it. This proves to me, that I did in fact learn somethin in that class. The connections are making themselves, the lines are solidifying as if by magic.

I'll still have to pull an all-nighter, but at least, by the time I get home, I should have three-quarters of the paper written and will only have to go through the books that I do not have with me here to make sure I didn't miss an important connection and perhaps insert some relevant quotes.

This reminds me of a paper I wrote as a junior in high school. The assignment was to create a travel diary of pioneers on the Oregon trail. I got the books that evening and sat down to write at 8:30pm. From then until 4am, I simply sat there, as the story unfolded before me on the flickering black and green computer screen. I felt more like a channel for the story, than the actual author.

I printed it out and fixed a few typos, pasted in my pictures, generated a list of what they brought with them and crashed into bed for two hours.

I got an A.

While I prefer not to resort to these kinds of tactics, I am not one to sneeze at a good thing. When the creative juices are flowing, it's generally in my best interest to take advantage of them. This thing is coming together despite my sense of "Oh shoot, I'm so screwed" of about two hours ago.

Now all I can do is hope that the magic is still in these here ten fingers and pray that the gods of beleaguered graduates students are with me tonight.