It’s that time of year for BYU students–everything is about to come to a wonderful, beautiful, liberating close, but before that you have to pass through the very gates of hell. Everyone is getting swamped with tests, papers, and projects, and I’m right there in the thick of it. Man, I’m starting to wish that I wasn’t in school anymore…or at least that I wasn’t a double major…
It’s not even all that much, to be honest–just two final papers in my two poli sci classes. But the first draft (10% of the paper grade, which is 25% of the class grade) is due on Friday, and I’m stressing like crazy. I always stress disproportionately for papers. It comes from a very bad experience I had my sophomore year–since then, I’ve seriously had a phobia of writing academic papers.
It doesn’t help that I haven’t actually started writing it, though I have done quite a bit of research and outlining in my mind. I’m at the point where I know what I want to say and where I want to go with this. I’ve got my sources worked out in my head, all of the major arguments, and everything else. The only problem is…it’s not written. Dangit!
It doesn’t help that I haven’t been getting much sleep in the last few days. Man, weird stuff happens to your emotions when you’re tired. Physically, I feel fine (except for an hour or two in the morning, when I feel nauseous and slightly drunk–usually I’m lifting heavy things right around that time, which compounds the problem), but emotionally, I’m just out of whack. I don’t even know quite how to describe it. It…sucks.
After I did a bunch of Arabic homework, I decided to come home and try to get some writing in before going to bed. Even though I haven’t written anything in that paper of mine. Crap. But…it’ll work out. And then, I’m going to go to bed early. I’m kind of tired of these emotional swings–they’re definitely the last thing I need at this time.
I’m a bit worried that all of this stress is going to make it hard for me to write. But…if I can’t write now, when I’m under this kind of stress, when am I ever going to write? I want to have a career and write on the side, but I’m sure that my career is going to bring a lot of stress into my life, and family definitely is as well…so if I can’t balance it now, when will I?
So, in some ways, it’s kind of a good thing that I’m stressed out. It’s giving me the opportunity to practice for those times in the future when things are even worse. If I can do it, and still do well in my other projects and stuff, then that’s like the ultimate in hardcore. Yeah.
So, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest I’m just going to go and write a little bit before I got to bed. Wish me luck.
