Literary Constipation, or History Papers Are Such Pain In the Ass
Published Wednesday, October 11, 2006 by Robin | E-mail this post
I slept very well last night. I had three assignments due yesterday and the weekend had been tiring. The thing about assignments and homework in general is that they count towards the final grade. Furthermore, it is not uncommon that some of the writing assignments actually carry more weight than the exams.
I spent Saturday and Sunday working on my history paper. It was tiring not because I was writing and drafting away, but because I was suffering from a particularly terrible bout of verbal constipation. I brooded over my response for hours on end but still could not put together a decent paragraph. I worked on a point after leaving my laundry in the washing machine but the paragraph was still incoherent after my laundry came out from the dryer.
I started on the paper by working through the readings on Saturday afternoon, half the time having no idea what the authors were driving at. They beat around the bush and devote chapters to obscure examples. But just when I thought that I can get the gist of what they are trying to say by simply reading the chapters’ introduction and conclusion (worked very well for my previous response paper), some important points pop up in the middle.
I gave up and went for dinner, thinking that the break will help me find my muse.
I worked on it again after dinner, got nowhere, took a fitful nap, and woke up at 1am feeling neither refreshed nor rejuvenated. Not only did I get no where this time, I threw out half the points from my outline. I came up with ideas for some new ones, chatted on MSN and went to sleep. That was Sunday morning.
Not surprisingly, I had to try very hard to stay awake in church. To add to my feeling sian, chio-bu woke up late and couldn’t make it to the service. But things got better. The bowel movements returned to some semblance of normalcy. While I did not turn into such a wordsmith as to be able to purge like some of those school-children who kenna-ed gastric flu, I was a lot more productive. It was like a much-needed dose of fiber and laxative, there was an irrigation in the colons; I could even put together the conclusion to my paper while taking a shower. In many sense, my paper ended with a release and then a flush.
The first chorus from “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’ aptly serves as an ode to my history paper, “Why'd you have to go and make me so constipated/'Cause right now I'd do anything to get my bowels evacuated”.
I spent Saturday and Sunday working on my history paper. It was tiring not because I was writing and drafting away, but because I was suffering from a particularly terrible bout of verbal constipation. I brooded over my response for hours on end but still could not put together a decent paragraph. I worked on a point after leaving my laundry in the washing machine but the paragraph was still incoherent after my laundry came out from the dryer.
I started on the paper by working through the readings on Saturday afternoon, half the time having no idea what the authors were driving at. They beat around the bush and devote chapters to obscure examples. But just when I thought that I can get the gist of what they are trying to say by simply reading the chapters’ introduction and conclusion (worked very well for my previous response paper), some important points pop up in the middle.I gave up and went for dinner, thinking that the break will help me find my muse.
I worked on it again after dinner, got nowhere, took a fitful nap, and woke up at 1am feeling neither refreshed nor rejuvenated. Not only did I get no where this time, I threw out half the points from my outline. I came up with ideas for some new ones, chatted on MSN and went to sleep. That was Sunday morning.
Not surprisingly, I had to try very hard to stay awake in church. To add to my feeling sian, chio-bu woke up late and couldn’t make it to the service. But things got better. The bowel movements returned to some semblance of normalcy. While I did not turn into such a wordsmith as to be able to purge like some of those school-children who kenna-ed gastric flu, I was a lot more productive. It was like a much-needed dose of fiber and laxative, there was an irrigation in the colons; I could even put together the conclusion to my paper while taking a shower. In many sense, my paper ended with a release and then a flush.
The first chorus from “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’ aptly serves as an ode to my history paper, “Why'd you have to go and make me so constipated/'Cause right now I'd do anything to get my bowels evacuated”.
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