Writing Exercises and Procrastination

Well, today my first writing exercise of the year is due. Like last year this is just a short critical analysis that won't count toward my final grade. It is marked, but it's really so that your tutor can see where your writing skill level are and how best to help you get a better mark on the first essay (which is due in four weeks). What I don't think the course lecturers, tutors, and course coordinator realise is that if they make something worth absolutely nothing for your final grade then the chances are most students won't give a care to actually do their best. I am a guilty party in this as are most of my friends. I wrote my short critical analysis on the excerpt from Ben Jonson's "Volpone." I don't know if any of you have read or seen "Volpone" but it is one of the most boring comedies I have ever read...ok, I didn't read the last two acts, but my point remains. Why, then, did I write my analysis on "Volpone"?

The answer is very simple. I don't care about "Volpone" and seeing as this doesn't count towards my final grade I didn't want to waste one of the Shakespeare plays on it. Also, it was only suppose to be 550 words (no longer). Now, 550 words may seem like a lot, but its really not. If you think that your introduction and conclusion are suppose to be about 10% of your essay each then you realise that with 550 words each the introduction and the conclusion are really only suppose to be 55 words in length. Not enough to write a coherent introduction. Luckily, the instructions said to not write an intro or a conclusion and just get into the analysis. Still, 550 words with as vague a question you can get is hard because fancy sentences go out the window and you're forced to get straight to the point. But at the same time it's easy because you don't have to worry about being the most eloquent possible, you just have to state the facts.

Having said all this, this assignment was, for some reason, very hard for me to complete. It's not that I didn't understand what was going on in "Volpone" or that I was being lazy and just not doing it. I sat down Wednesday morning and only got 150 horrible words out by Wednesday evening. This is something that should only take me three hours (tops) to write. I think I spent an hour starring at the computer screen without writing a single word at a point.

After realising that no matter what I wrote it was still going to come out as a horrible paper, I started procrastinating. Yesterday we I got home from lectures I decided to mow the lawn (which is a funny story all by itself and deserves its own post) instead of finishing up my analysis. I even decided to do Spanish homework (which also deserves its own post) instead of writing. I put a mental block on the darn thing and it took all my focus and attention and Buffy the Vampire breaks during girls night last night to finish. But it is finished and I hope that it's alright.

All I can say is that I'm glad that Sims3 Pets didn't come out until today or I never would have finished it.

November 4: Procratination

I'm trying very hard to get these essays done, but you see I have this big problem. I'm a chronic procrastinator. I just can't seem to kick the habit no matter how hard I try.

What usually sets of the procrastination is that it's something I don't particularly want to do. I love writing, but writing essays just sort of bores me. And this time I have to write 3 different essays for 3 different classes all due on the same day. Each one of these essays is suppose to be done in a different format and style and I just don't quite feel like going in between the "British" version of MLA to...whatever it is my Art History essay is suppose to be written in. There's just so much more fun things to do.

For one, blogging. I like this kind of writing. It's fun and free and you can pretty much write about anything. In an essay I am set to what the markers want to read. If it were up to me I would go on long rant about how fairy tales used to be this great oral tradition of all of our ancestors and now they are a ploy of the movie and book industry to make more money than God (no offense Big Guy). But instead I have to write about how transformation can be analyzed phycologically (this is a word I've never been able to spell so, sorry) in fairy tales. Needless to say I'm choosing one of the many variations of "Beauty and the Beast" and saying that the Beast represents the young girl's fear of growing up into sexual awareness and her inhibition of the opposite sex. And I'm also using Snow White to point out that older women also have this fear of growing older and that the reason the queen turns into an old, ugly hag is because that is how she now sees herself. Nothing too exciting, but I have to find articles and books and journals that back up my point which is where I'm running into a wall on this one. I hate searching for journal articles because sometimes the most useful article only says one or two things on the subject but it's the most profound thing you have ever read. Only, you can't find those articles easily because they generally only show up on the 5th or 6th search.

See what I mean? There are just a lot of things that are more fun than sitting in the library searching endlessly through journals. This includes things like studying my Gaelic and cleaning my room. I know I'm weird but I do enjoy cleaning to an extent. A clean room allows your mind to become less cluttered and Lord knows I need a good sweeping in there.

So for now, to increase the quality of my essays you understand, I am going to unclutter my room so I can unclutter my mind.

If any of you have any advice on how to help with my procrastination I would welcome it.