Bursts of Life

I don’t feel like expounding on anything at length, but didn’t want to make 15 short little entries for links, etc., so in little bursts:

Process of the Creation of a 1200-Word English Essay, particularly for Dr. Foofoo McKnuckleberry

1. T minus 10 hours: think of a couple of ideas for a thesis. It doesn’t need to be at all original. This should take about 2 minutes. Recommence previous activities.
2. T minus 5 hours: start writing the intro paragraph. Get good thesis sentences down, all the while marking up poem/book with (hopefully) relevant examples thought up without extensive research/thought. Unless already hit with inspiration (un-fucking-likely) don’t worry about significance of argument yet.
3. T minus 4 hours: form a nebuluous idea of essay structure. How much post-intro information will there be before heading into the actual points to be proven, and what format will be taken for the actual argument? Continue marking up any brainstormed examples.
4. T minus 3.75 hours: write post-intro information–explain briefly what is really almost being taken as given, and make sure too many assumptions aren’t being made.
5. T minus 3.25 hours: head into actual essay, having already killed over 300 words. Oh, yeah.
6. T minus 1 hour: probably about 400 words left. Write the conclusion. There’s 100 gone. Break time. Read through what’s written and check for wording problems, spelling problems, unclarity. Further analyze an example–beat the shit out of it. Even out length of analysis all-around. Remember, paragraphs probably shouldn’t just end with a quote, no matter how hard-hitting–profs like it better if you quote, then explain, instead of presenting the idea, then quoting.
7. T minus 0.5 hours: probably about 200 words left. Skim the examples from the book/poem in context, and… blam. A lucky-as-hell bit of inspiration that never fails and adds a connection not seen during class discussion, and will nudge the grade above 90%. Make this the thread that weaves the whole essay together, linking arguments/examples/paragraphs. All grade problems now will be due to presentation, not argument.
8. T minus 0.25 hours: update thesis declaration to reflect the newfound actual importance of the original argument. Skim again for errors. Submit.

Today’s lesson? When it becomes formulaic, try something new or get another prof.

Intellectual Whore: a guy who gets classified as “one of the girls”, and thereby never gets any capital P. What’s the chica equivalent?

Jay Allen’s resolution to believe in himself struck a bit of a chord with me. That whole Imposter Syndrome? I gots it kinda bad, I think, based on this. I can also immediately think of two good friends of mine who have expressed similar sentiments. Geez. How many times have I labored over physics or math homework, working alone so no one would find out how much trouble I was having, and how many times have I stepped away from the plate when challenges came my way. Jeebus. More than I thought, looking back on it now…

A girl from the other freshman chick floor just visited us wearing inside-out jeans, a red feather boa, pearls around her waist, and a t-shirt that reads, “Shittles: Taste the Asshole”.

Vertical centering with CSS. Just in case you didn’t know.

There is no better way to break up an all-male (all-hetero) tickling session than to walk in the room and say, “Hey! It’s a sausagefest!”

Some things Prime can do without in 2004–a ridiculously funny read. I particularly appreciated the ones about unsupervised children and Viagra. Clickity-click.

I will admit that I had never heard of Tavis Smiley before reading thebrotherlove’s post mentioning he would be moving to PBS from BET. What do you expect? I don’t watch television. So that night, I tuned in (we get two PBS’s here, ‘cuz we’re near the Illinois border–double the fun) to see Newt Gringrich (didn’t he co-author a sci-fi book published by Baen?) and Wren T. Brown. Brown just killed me. People that talk very very proper English, enunciating every syllable… that fucking rocks. It’s not particularly sexy or anything, it’s just really cool and great to listen to. It makes me jealous, because I used to talk like that, but my parents picked on me so much I set out to let my language become more… vernacular. I was quite the little grammarian, too. Le sigh.

Randy Crawford’s voice is simply the definition of a beautiful female voice. (Let it be known…?) I just recently discovered that I have the “Naked and True” CD (my father played the hell out of “Cajun Moon” when he bought the CD, and I’m still not tired of it), and I’m lovin’ it to death. And she sings “Holding Back the Years”. I think I’m going to cry…