Anatomy of a paper:

23:44:

Well. I've written a pretty detailed outline, but it looks like I have too much stuff. Two-ish pages of the actual paper written, which is pretty incoherent. I think the draft will take less time than the editing. Time to make tea.

Currently procrastinating by: reading American Idol boards over on TWoP.
Currently listening to: Pink Floyd, Echoes
Amount of Diet Coke consumption: 24 ounces

00:12:

I made the tea too strong, and probably brewed it too long. Oh well. I'm leaving the teapot out. Maybe food will make me more motivated. No progress on the paper, but I've discovered what happened on AI last night. The funny part of all this is, I've never watched AI. Like not even part of a show. I think I'm going to go make a peanut butter sandwich.

00:35:

That peanut butter was good. Definitely a good choice, there. Writing about illegitmacy in Christian Iceland. Listen to this story: Amundi the blind was the illegitimate son of Hoskuld Njalsson and was, shockingly enough, blind. Hoskuld was murdered by Lyting, who paid compensation to Hoskuld's father and brothers. Amundi asked Lyting for compensation, too, and Lyting refused, saying that Amundi didn't count because he was illegitimate. Amundi asked God for help, and God restored his sight, so he went back into Lyting's booth "and hit him in the head with his axe so that it sank all the way to the back edge." Then he went blind again.

Currently procrastinating by: Reading "Get Fuzzy" and wondering if that is actually what McCoy is thinking.
Currently listening to: "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," all 17 minutes of it.
Amount of Diet Coke consumption: 28 ounces

01:03:

Working on divorce now. Yes, a divorce from school for me. I shouldn't be this tired, really. It's not that late, and I've gotten some sleep for the past few nights. But I've started typing song lyrics that I'm hearing instead of words. I think I'll work another couple of hours and then try to get a little sleep at least. I've already begun on the sleep-deprived cold thing too. I've added a sweater and some fuzzy socks to my oh-so-attractive must-write-a-paper ensemble.

Currently procrastinating by: Writing incoherent emails to Will.
Currently listening to: tmbg, Then:The Earlier Years
Amount of Diet Coke consumption: 30 ounces

01:47:

I feel a little bit better. Divorce is more or less done, and I'm much of the way through illegitimacy (and usually I bitch about Word's reliance on AutoCorrect and AutoFormat, but I am completely unable to spell illegitimacy, so it was useful here). The current plan: finish up the ill-word, finish up consent in marriage, and write about a page on inheritance. By then it'll probably be about 3:30, so I can sleep till 7:30, get up and attempt to put in some transitions (which are entirely missing now) and even go to class in the morning. Then I have till 3 to do any editing and write an intro/conclusion. It should be OK, right? This is the wimpiest all-nighter ever, so I'm changing the name of this post.

02:11:

Maybe Roger Waters should have higher standards. His utopia includes "no one kills the children anymore," "maniacs/ don't blow holes/ in bandsmen by remote control," and "no one ever disappears, you never hear their standard issue kicking in your door." Not that these aren't worthy goals, but it seems like if you were inventing a utopia, you'd go a bit farther. Though I suppose Lennon doesn't either; "Imagine" is all about ending hunger and war and not making people happy. A little bit at a time, maybe? Man I am ridiculously tired. I thought that the hour and half long nap that was physics would have made me feel better, but apparently not.

03:34:

Seven-ish pages written. I have to sleep. Setting alarm for 6:30.

07:02:

Three hours of sleep and four snooze cycles later, I'm back awak. I feel a surprising amount better, even though I'm never sure how much good three hours of sleep does. Anyway, I need to write about two more pages, then I can start editting, since my papers almost always get longer with editting. Particularly this one, which completely lacks any transitions.

07:37:

I bought a six-pack of 24-ounce bottles of Diet Coke at Mr. G's. Did you even know such things existed? It's definitely getting me through now. I thought about eating, but I feel kind of nauseous and the last thing I want to do is start throwing up now. So Diet Coke it is! I think part of the reason that I was so tired last night has to do with the apartment. After about nine at night, it's usually pretty dark. I'm at the other end of the apartment from my roommates, so basically I look down the hallway and it looks completely dark. That makes it feel like it's later than it actually is, and my body decides "man, it's late now. need sleep." Or maybe I'm just old.

Currently procrastinating by: Googling the best restauranter ever, William Restrepo.
Currently listening to: Dire Straits
Amount of Diet Coke consumption: 37 ounces

08:20:

Working on a conclusion now, though that doesn't mean I'm terribly close to being finished. Up to eight and a half pages. One of my roommates is making tea and the kettle has been whistling right outside the door for the last three minutes or so. I mean, Jesus, if you can't hear the kettle in your room, you can stay in the kitchen until the water boils. It's not like it takes that long, and listening to a kettle whistle for three minutes is really annoying. And I know I could go and get her.

08:50:

McCoy keeps rolling around in my bathtub. I'm not really sure what's up with that. I mean, if I were a cat, I would try to stay the hell away from bathtubs, and he often seems to be trying to turn on the taps. Stupid cat.


Currently procrastinating by: Playing with McCoy
Currently listening to: XTC, Skylarking
Amount of Diet Coke consumption: 46 ounces

09:07:

Printing draft one of hopefully three. One round of edits before class at 11:30, one during, one after. Hopefully that will be enough. This is definitely the closest that I've come to a deadline on a paper. It won't really be done, and that's entirely my fault. I have to stop procrastinating.

10:21:

Edits made, need to be entered into Word. Interesting comments: "Dude, I'm qualifying a lot of crap here," "Put some fricking exposition here," "sentence awkward," "crappy!!" "stop it!" and "(Is it?)" as well as more traditional comments. Yeah. This is a bit bad. Just a bit. It's funny that this is the least sleep I've had for school-related reasons since first year and it's for a paper for a class I don't even really care about. How does that work again?

11:00:

OK, changes entered and I'm about to head off to class. I wish I didn't have to go, but I have to return some problem sets and pick up some more, and since it's their last class, I really should do this. After class, two and a half hours to finish. This'll be down to the wire.

12:39:

Fuck. I forgot to upload my paper to FTP, so I had the choice of either typing it all over again or coming home. It cost me close to half an hour. Now I absolutely need to fix footnotes and bibliography and write and intro before doing anything more stylistically. I just wish all this were over.

13:25:

OK, bibliography is done. Footnotes are fixed. Intro is written. I have a little over an hour to fix the major stylistic problems of this paper. It could be worse, since at least I will have something to turn in. That always makes me happy. I've decided that the major problem that I'm having is that I'm not really doing what I'm supposed to be doing (analyzing modern research in the light of a historical source) so much as just writing about a historical source. Oh, well, that's too late to fix, so whenever I talk about the modern scholarship, it sounds sort of tacked on.

14:30:

Yay, paper is printing now. Plenty of time to walk to class. I imagine there are lots and lots of mistakes, because of the combination of my tiredness and the minimal amount of editting this paper saw. Who wants to go get drunk tonight?

17:11:

Well, it's turned in. And I have the unsettling thought that I left a couple of those notes to myself (you know the type: "This is sort of crap" and "Write something about what's-her-name? Gudrun? here") in the final draft. I hope not; that would be a little embarrassing. The first draft I printed still actually had the title of "Title," but I did catch that one. Ah, well, it's done and all that. Booze tonight!