Last Paper (The Sky Is The Limit)

Last semester, at one point, my breadcrumb was a black piece of paper. The point originally was to have a picture of the first page of my last paper of the semester. Unfortunately, I had not finished the paper, and had to complete it in the morning, so I took a picture of the blank page instead.

Today, I do not have a similar picture. What I do have is a similar situation. Tonight, I finished the last paper of my undergrad college career. I realize many people have already gotten this far, some have even graduated already, but it is a triumph, nonetheless. For a short part of my Senior Year of high school I considered whether or not college was worth while. Plenty of people are able to have successful careers without a degree. It also gets you started four years earlier, and thousands of dollars gained in non-existent debt. My dad never went to college and look how our family is doing.

Here I am, four years later, on the verge of graduation and in pursuit of a Ph.D in psychology. I might have a mountain of debt, and I might have less than 200 dollars in the bank, but I do not at all wonder if I made the right decision.

Also, recently, I reached another anniversary. With April concluded, it has been five years since I last drank. No I am not a recovering alcoholic and I do not consider this 'sober' stretch a conquering of an addiction. But it is somewhat of an accomplishment. Maybe in the hardest time of one's life to not drink, I made it through four years of college, constantly surrounded by and tempted by drinking, and did not give in. I do not claim to plan to never drink again, and to be perfectly honest, I contemplate going back quite often. Something seems to always keep me from doing so, and until that changes I will remain sober. I don't view myself above or better than those that drink. I just feel as though I would prefer to avoid substances as 'social lubricants' or as a way to 'enjoy' myself. It has been hard, and people definitely do not always make the decision easy. I often wonder how life at college may have changed had I drank, but I do not regret it.

I was not sure if I was going to mention this on here, and for a week or so now I held off. Ultimately, this blog is a reflection on things, and a place for me to discuss whatever I choose. My choice to not drink in college has made a significant impact on my life and so I believe that this 'anniversary' or 'accomplishment' is something to make note of. I know one thing, it has definitely saved me a lot of money.

Prep Work

Today's picture is the physical representation of the prep work for my last major assignment as an undergrad. After a series of email back and forth with a classmate and several our searching through Ebscohost, I finally found my topic. Several hours later, I have my sources read, highlighted, and outlined.

Now, it is time for bed. Alarm is set for 9 am to transform this outline into a presentation. Later this week, that presentation will be transformed into essay form, making up my final paper for the course and for my college career.

I wonder if it is ever apparent to the teacher or students in the class that the assignment they're hearing about, the topic I am presenting on, was only decided upon less than a day ago, and that a decent percentage of the work was done that morning? I hope not. I believe I do my best work in these crisis situations and that when all is said and done, the final product comes across as if it had been done over time and well in advance.

A little dissapointing...

So last night I decided my picture for today would be of my printed out cover to my final paper which is due tomorrow. I knew it would not be out of the question to finish it and at a decent hour since i had already found the studies I was going to use and this paper only had to be 7-8 pages unlike the last one that was both in unfamiliar territory as well as longer.

Unfortunately, I did not finish. To clarify, the paper is complete text-wise, just not formatting-wise. I still need to do all the in-text citations and such before I can click print.

I am also putting my social anxiety to the test. Out of annoyance with the second part of the assignment 'i think itd be great to have everyone give a 5-10 minute presentation on their paper so that the whole class can learn about what you researched and what you found' sure on some level itd be nice to learn a few things the class never covered but wait a second that means more work. Specifically it means adding a class presentation to a research study. Instead of putting in all the hours it would take to prepare a formal presentation and powerpoint slideshow I am just going to wing it. I mean its part of the paper grade so how much could it really hurt my grade?

*Collar tug*.

See you tomorrow night when I can officially say 'I am done with classes for the semester'
Only get to say that one more time. For now I'll leave you with 'Last Day of Classes!'

A little less apprehension, a little more confidence

So yesterday I spent from about 1 pm to 5 am this morning working on my term paper for my capstone course/senior values course. This class is both the final Core Requirement for the school and the last tier in the Major Requirement. As such, the final paper was not going to be easy, and it was not. It was probably the most dense paper I have ever written and the longest (not including my chapter by chapter analysis for my lit class which was less a paper and more an extended list of descriptions) I have written. While the length was '10-15 about' my paper ended up, with title page and references - at 20.

As of 1 pm yesterday I had written only 2 of those pages. I am impressed with myself. At the same time, I did not do a very close proofread of it and it may be reflected in the final product exactly how last minute I did this paper. I essentially had finished the paper by about 2:30. From then until 530 I spent writing the references and placing the in-text citations for that paper and another paper also due today - a treatment study paper for my clinical psychology class. All together there were probably over 20 references and with 28 pages between the two papers - there were alot of in-text citations to be made.

Accomplishing such a task in the time I did so makes me feel a little less apprehensive about my one-day thesis paper i will write. If i am able to knock out the number of pages I did in the time I did, writing that many pages is definitely doable - not easy - just doable.

One paper left.

oh..and 4 finals - but I have time before them.

(todays picture is of a lamp outside of a building i passed walking to get a milkshake in the city. upon further inspection it was noted that this was no ordinary lamp as that is actually a flame. this area of the city was being lit by flame lamps - awesome)

papers papers papers

pretty much what i looked at/what i saw all day today and will be looking at all day tomorrow.

oh the weather outside...

well it might not be exactly the same as the song has in mind - but it is looking like it might get cold soon. and today felt a bit more bitter than normal - even if i was still able to get away with a lighter jacket. guess we can blame it on the rain.

so i am officially at T-minus 2 days for the big Law and Psych paper. guess that means i should start it tomorrow. luckily i am totally done my clinical paper (still needs some minor edits and a references page but that's mindless).

will be skipping work tomorrow. it pains me to say it. i just think about the class and i want to be there so badly. but i know i have to buckle down on this paper and if i only get 5-6 hours of sleep and then have work i will be losing steam before i make much progress and tomorrow has to be a majority of the work so i am not fighting time wednesday. for once let me not be writing the paper until the final moments.

the picture i am posting has to do with a snafu of sorts that occured today with the United States Postal Service and a piece of pink vinyl I have been looking forward to. Most of you know what happened already so I am not going to go on an on about it. Let me just say that if you think you can fit it in the PO box and it feels like in doing so - you are bending something that is putting up enough resistance that it probably is not supposed to bend - would you do it anyway? apparently someone who works for them would. hopefully the band gets back to me about it. agh

overkill, in a good way?

as i mentioned on my twitter earlier i, in what could be a good way, went overkill on my paper i am working on. what only needed to be 3-5 pages describing a few treatment studies on a common disorder and then summarizing them turned into about 20+ hours of work. i researched the studies, i researched the studies they based their studies on, etc - and read them all top-to-bottom. even though i was only presenting the cliffnotes of each (3 pages isnt alot) i still was strangely interested enough to thoroughly read and annotate all of them. and its a holiday break right now. sad? maybe. promising sign that i am in the right field? remains to be seen.

what can be said is that for what might not even be a better grade i have put way more time into this than i intended or needed to purely because i was interested in the information i was reading about. the same will not be true about the law paper i will start tomorrow. (maybe secretly i was so interested in this because it meant i could put off moving onto the law paper longer while under the guise of being productive).

cheers.