I'm sorry I've sort of "disappeared" from around here. I haven't really had much to say because 1) Kee was on a work/holiday hiatus, and 2) I wasn't writing anything myself, either. But now Kee is back, and I--well, I'm not writing, but I AM working.

I am sure that none of you have ever been late with a paper before *cough*, but the later it is, the more you feel like you have to have something really fantastic in hand before you can talk to your instructor about it, and the more pressure you feel to produce something extra super fabulous. (I am sure I read a much better description of this over at Bitch PhD, but I couldn’t find it today despite *cough* too much time spent reading her archives.) When you find yourself in this situation, the only way out of it is to sack up and go talk to your instructor, like I did last week.

Unfortunately, my discussion with her was completely the opposite of extra super fabulous. It was like I was channeling Ralphie at Santa’s workshop in the department store: Paper? What’s a paper?! I may have made a bit of an ass of myself, but what else is new. The look on her face when I was describing my totally un-do-able idea for a paper topic had the same effect as Santa’s elf trying to push Ralphie down the slide after he mumblingly agreed to a football: Ack! I take it back! Except my idea for a do-able topic—one I had a note about on my laptop--didn’t occur to me until I got to the bus stop. Since then, I’ve been going through the literature I already have on hand, trying to ferret out useful information.

I’ve realized 2 things recently that have really helped me wrap my mind around this paper-thing:
1. I had to ask myself: “Why am I doing something I don’t like?” And then I remembered: I *do* like learning! Then why the hell am I acting like it is the worst thing I’ve ever been asked to do?
2. Writing this paper doesn’t mean I have to reinvent the wheel. As a matter of fact, it is a seminar paper, not a master’s thesis; it doesn’t even have to be original. I just have to come up with a question and use the available literature to find a reasonable answer.
With these 2 things squared away, I feel like I’ve made the proper mental adjustments that will let me make some progress.

Next goal: getting an outline of my (hopefully not sucky) new topic to my instructor by the end of next week. (Hannah is out of school this week, which is also the last week of the semester, so I am not going to push my luck by aiming for the end of this week.)