i feel like crap and have a paper due tomorrow morning... options

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

actually, it's two papers. on two different books. we have to relate these books to two really pretentious quotes that she gave us from a certain list.

Oh, "crap" includes a massive headache, fatigue, nausea, and trouble seeing.

[Redleg]

1. Complete the paper as best you can- at least you will get partial credit.

Then kick yourself in the ass for procrastinating writing the paper in the first place.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

2. well

it was just given to us a couple days ago...

[Redleg]

13. Oh- that's bad. I apologize for the procrastination comment.

I hated papers that had to be written within a week.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

14. It's okay

It's not like they're really "papers", more like short essays of 300 words each or so... it's just that i'm haing trouble seeing the screen :(

[Redleg]

15. Take a short nap and then try to write them after?

Good luck- I hope it works out. Keep on chugging away. I hope you are not really ill.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

16. I just took a nap

For two hours, accidentally... when I woke up I felt worse :(

[oppositionmember]

3. Get yourself admitted to a hospital

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

4. that sounds like a fabulous idea

except i think it's just flu or something

[ncrainbowgrrl]

5. How long does the paper have to be?

n/t

[A-Schwarzenegger]

6. What is the paper & the books & the quotes?

And how long is it? It shouldnt take you more than
a hour or so if you get in the right frame of Zen mind,
Zen paper. I have written many papers easily once you
get in the right Zen frame of mind where all is nothing
and nothing is all.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

10. Well

the books are:
a midsummer night's dream (william shakespeare)
their eyes were watching god (zora neale hurston)

Each book has to have something like 300 words written about it, which isn't long at all.. it's just a matter of me being able to focus my eyes on the screen long enough to see what I'm doing.

We were given a list of 10 quotes, but there were only a few that really somewhat applied to my two books. I decided ont hese two:
1. “Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but molds it to its own purpose.” - Oscar Wilde
2. "To producee a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." - Herman Melville

[A-Schwarzenegger]

18. SAMPLE PAPER: written in Zen mind, Zen paper.

Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was about a bunch
of lovers running around in and out of doors and confusing
their identities. You could say almost anything about it and
it would be relatively applicable. Woody Allen also made it
into a movie in case you dont want to read the play. Their Eyes
Were Watching God was a novel in the 1930s about a light-skinned
black girl named Janie who was discriminated against by everybody,
men, women, whites, blacks. So ...

William Shakespeare lived at a time when romance thrived
and the hills rang with confusion and many opening and
closing doors. Basically, nobody knew what was coming next
because of so much love and masks and changing identities.
This is why Shakespeare decided to present a wacky picture
of romance and love and related things, focusing on the
entanglements that relationships can raise. So when Oscar
Wilde, a famous writer, says, "Literature always anticipates
life. It does not copy it, but molds it to its own purpose,"
he might as well have been talking about Shakespeare and
"Midsummer Night's Dream". Shakespeare, also known as "The Bard,"
was anticipating the many loves that each of us have in our lives,
but by exaggerating the pitfalls and wacky problems love brings, he kept from copying it, made it fresh as a box of rose that were
just picked, and molded it to his own purpose, which was to write
a play about it and have lots of people down through the ages leave
the theater thinking about love and how it can be both fun and yet
bring many assorted problems.

Zora Neale Thurston's book is a lot more serious than Shakespeare's
frothy delight of love's sometimes unfair deck. She is talking about real suffering, as opposed to Shakespeare's silly going-ons, although of course as fiction she was also making it up, but surely it was
based on her own personal experience and as such should be taken as
seriously as real life. Janie does not know where trouble is going to
come from next. She never fits in anywhere, so she has to be ready
for anything. She is a fighter but she also can't really fight the
world, because it is too big. That is why when Herman Melville, who
wrote Moby Dick and other famous books, says, "To producee a mighty
book, you must choose a mighty theme," he might as well have just been
reading Hurston's book, for Hurston has written a work which takes
about every big theme you can think of, like racism, gender problems,
social issues, economics, history, clothing, travel, talking, etc.,
and rolls it all into one big ball of wax that teems and steams with
interesting issues and related problems. Janie may not have been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, to say the least, but she makes the best of what she has been dealt, and that is all we can ask of anybody.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

25. I read the books already

But thanks anyway!

[A-Schwarzenegger]

29. Well!

But welcome anyway! And feel better.

[burythehatchet]

11. something tells me that some of your papers might have been

assisted by toledo window box

[A-Schwarzenegger]

19. More like venice windowpane.

Of course this was many many years ago, by George.

[burythehatchet]

20. you weren't a math/philosophy dual major at SUNYAlbany in the late 70's

were you.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

21. I most certainly was not.

I not only don't remember the late 70's, I don't even
remember where I was in the late 70's. Nevertheless,
I'm pretty sure I wasn't there.

[burythehatchet]

22. just as I suspected

:)

[DrWeird]

7. Do the paper yesterday.

Like you should have.

:smoke:

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

12. oh, DrWeird!

You always know what to say! ;)

[burythehatchet]

8. take heart in the fact that you are so loved and respected at DU

and use that energy to fuel your stream of consciousness and knock out a gem.
:)

[cally]

9. I would just try to crank something out

or my old standby was to go to sleep and wake up at 4 am and write the paper. I'm a morning person.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

17. yikes

4 am... wake up... does not compute! :scared:

[JohnKleeb]

23. Maggie, I wish I could help you

God, I don't know what I'd do honestly. Maybe you could rest for an hour or two and see if you feel better, then do the paper. I dont know, I bet the sleep is tempting. Feel better.

[Zomby Woof]

24. You shoulda had the GREEN NyQuil!

;-)

Hope you feel better, and you will ACE the papers. :hug:

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

26. I got to bed too late last night to take nyquil

i still haven't written these papers, i sat down on my bed to take my shoes off just now and fell asleep for a half hour.

[gizmo1979]

27. The internet,CHEAT according to bush it's the american way!!

[VOX]

28. Maggie, are you sick enough that you won't be going to school tomorrow?

That might solve all your problems right there. (Except for being sick, of course.)

Once you get something down on paper, just a start, you'll feel better about the papers -- it's **starting** them that's hard.

Feel better, and let us know how it goes. :hug:

[Lisa]

30. can you contact the prof (via e-mail or voicemail)?

Instructors tend to be more accommodating about extensions if students request them before the due date. (At least, my colleagues and I are.)

[nickgutierrez]

31. Ugh... I really can't say.

I would probably just find a way to get a hold of the instructor, tell him or her about your situation, and ask for a short extension so that you can work on the papers at your leisure. Right now, as you describe it, you're going to have one hell of a time trying to focus on the paper, and it's not going to be your best work. A short extension would allow you to write during the times you don't feel quite this bad, and just sleep or otherwise when you don't.