I actually thought of something interesting to write about here earlier today, but I can't, for the life of me, remember what that thing was. This is annoying but I'll just ramble and see what happens. If it's even half interesting I'll probably put it up as that way I don't feel like I've completely wasted time that I should have spent working on the latest batch of essays.
I've been getting rather good marks this year, which would be fine if they had happened my usual way - through a mixture of pretentiousness and luck - but this time I've actually got good marks by working hard. This is, of course, very foolish. If I give the impression that I'm the sort of person who works hard then people might expect me to work hard again: pressure that I really don't need at the moment. I wish I could just apologise, explain that it was out of character and not what they should expect from me. My normal style is badly proofread, incoherent and with a bibliography about three books long: but featuring occasional patches of verbose lucidity that redeem and bring it to at least the 50-60 range.
Last term I was fine with the high marks, then I had no expectations - I was happy just to be not failing. This time around I've got the possibility of a first hanging tantalizingly above my head and I've somehow managed to buy into my own bullshit and start to think that this is a possibility. This term, however, I'm up against, on the one hand, texts that are so boring they have a reading to sleep ratio of 3 pages per 30 minutes of nap and, on the other, a set of questions so complex and difficult that I'm 3 days of research and 20 pages of notes into one and still have no idea how I'm going to write the damn thing.
So I'm doing the only sensible thing, which is listening to music and writing a rambling whinge about it on here, avoiding the ominous word file sitting down there on my taskbar, mocking me with its emptiness. My logic might not be exactly watertight but it'll do for the moment, just until I can say that it's 'too late to carry on working' and go to bed.
I suppose I could have asked for some help from my seminar leader, but it seems more likely that I'm just not paying attention than I'm genuinely stuck. At least this way I write the essay the way that seems right to me and not according to the personal specialities of my seminar leader (I'm guessing with this one he'd tell me to relate it all to Conrad and then tell me a story about tar, Conrad, teeth, and finish it off with some trivia about Conrad)
...
Well that plan doesn't really seemed to have worked, I've run out of things to say (although it would probably be more accurate to say that I never had anything to say in the first place) and I'm not even close to that magical 2am barrier where I declare it to be too late for work.
oh well, back to the essay o' death.
-Ben
