The Paper From Hell

I try to live my life by the rule of: Learn from your mistakes. Unfortunately, this is not always possible. Especially for people like me, who make decisions like eating Indian food the night before a race. Or taking a nap 20 minutes before youre supposed to leave for it.

These past 2 days (after my race fiasco on Sunday) have been characterized by pure exhaustion. Yesterday was Monday, aka Day 1 of 3 of intense 10 page essay writing for my positive psychology class. This never ending essay from hell is due on Saturday, but because I'm conveniently leaving for Vietnam Friday morning, am forced to have it done by Thursday.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have been planning on writing this essay for a long time. My intentions for getting it finished were definitely for the best. But my actions failed me. Yet again. San Diego Renee would have had this done a month ago. But Singapore Renee is different. But can you blame me? You can probably understand how going to Bali, or taking a weekend trip to Thailand, can get in the way of accomplishing your school goals. For the first time all semester, I have experienced school stress; maybe it really is the stress of getting the paper done by a deadline. Or perhaps it is the stress that comes with re-learning what it means to have to write a legit paper: Focusing. Not procrastinating. Knowing what you're supposed to be writing about. An attention-span that lasts more than 3 minutes and doesn't resort to Facebooking.

Anyways, I spent all of Sunday cooped up in my room writing the first 2 pages of my essay. Yesterday, I spent all day and night in the library working on the next 3 pages of the essay. I didn't meet any of my friends for 2 full days, which is like an eternity when you're on a serious time-limited exchange program. They were wondering what happened to me, where their San Diego girl had gone. Little did they know her life was being taken over by a paper...

Delirious, and dazed, I walked home after the library closed, and somehow made my way into bed. Today, after class, I went to the library to finish another 2 pages. For the record, I spent 2 hours working on these 2 pages...pouring my heart...soul...brain power...and okay the best BS I have into it. Then, as I go to leave to meet my group for a project, I didn't save my essay, and the last 2 pages I had just done were gone. Lost. Finito. To the Singaporean computer gods. I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. Nausea overwhelmed me, and I felt like I was going to pass out when suddenly--
***Flashback, to the SDSU library, last semester, where the SAME EXACT THING happened to me as I was writing some other crazy essay. For DA (PSYCH 410) I'm guessing. Who knows? But I failed to save it, and it was lost on the library computer, and I pretty much wanted to end my life. But I had to suck it up and rewrite it, and promise myself to never be so stupid again. Clearly, I broke that promise.***

After the group meeting, where the local Singaporean girls told me to go and try to recover the file on the computer, I wandered back to the library, full of despair and sorrow. 2 hours of my life wasted. After Zami gave me his sympathy ("Are you okay? You look really depressed") and David made a few clicks to try to find it, I officially gave up trying to save it, and decided to rewrite it. My anger was seething through my skin as I channeled it into my paper-writing and I ended up writing more pages than I had previously. After my next class, I returned to the library to finish the paper (yes, all 10 pages) by 9pm.

Unfortunately, I could not tell you what I wrote about. And after trying to reread and edit those 10 pages of legit BS, I was bored by page 2 and stopped.

Therefore, I would like to say that the lesson learned is to always save your file before you exit out of word. But perhaps it's more honest if I say that the best BS writing comes out when you are extremely angry. And that, my friends, is what living and learning from your mistakes is all about.