Status Report for 11-26-7

I’ve felt weak, uncertain, scared, apathetic, among other things. But I haven’t felt unable. I haven’t felt hopeless. I’ve felt stress.

I swelled with pride today. I don’t know why I respond like this when I feel like my back is against a wall. I mean, I wish I could respond like this on a normal basis in terms of just being focused and doing what I need to do. But there was something uncommon about my self-belief today. My self-confidence, my motivation. My belief, my conviction that I wasn’t going to give up. With that, I gave myself the best opportunity to succeed. I ate breakfast. I showered. I function better when clean. I even shaved a little bit, just for that extra effect. I brushed my teeth, as I do most mornings, and took the extra step of putting on a little Axe.

Other times, I’ve tried sitting down and writing this paper. Today, it felt like time.

It wasn’t perfect, but I got in about five hours of solid, focused time. I tend to write in notepad so I don’t look at the page count. It worked when I was at Rutgers. As happens every time, I near the end of my writing session, and I dump it into Word to see how many pages I have. I swell with pride at my progress. Then I remember, “Oh, I didn’t doublespace it yet.”

Then I really swell with pride.

I’m actually short in pagecount right now, at about five pages of actual writing. I need eight. But that doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me, as a writer, is that I answered the question I proposed. It’s probably more of an essay than a research paper. I used an old strategy of typing up every single decent quote from all my sources. Then arranging them in an order that makes sense, and adding transitions and commentary whereever necessary. As Victoria said, I know the material.

I’m slightly bothered that the paper isn’t more technical. But the fact is, none of my sources touched that kind of detail. Is he really expecting me to talk about actin-myosin complexes and how protein does or does not effect them? This is a paper for a second-year county college course, not a thesis paper. I recall emailing him about sources, whether it mattered if the research citing IN an article was older than five years, as he wanted recent material. I suspected all that mattered was that the source I cite is within five years. He said I was overthinking.

I really don’t care what kind of grade I get, as long as he accepts it and lets me pass the damn course.

I had an emotional hiccup in the middle of the day. I was going to play a game of Can’t Stop with Victoria, because we both needed some relaxation time. What’s his name, Sean? We seem to irritate each other rather easily. I got suddenly upset, and I really didn’t have the emotional energy to spare, so I just grabbed my bookbag and left. I couldn’t afford to lose my momentum in terms of writing my paper. I heard a whisper in my mind, “Let go of your anger, or it will poison you.” I know for a damn fact someone’s said that to me, but I can’t remember who. I got going on my paper again, and promptly shifted my mood back to normal. We later apologized.

Ashley said something about Gaming Club getting together for an end-of-the-semester party. Or something. These things are never clear to me. She asked if I was free on some day. I asked what day of the week it was. She said either Thursday or Friday. I said I work. She replied that I could ask off, as it’s two to three weeks in advance. Girl’s got a point. Ha ha. I later glanced at a calendar. I’m sure I could get the day off, as I intend to volunteer for Christmas Eve. I’m weird like that.

Which got me thinking about how often I’m going to hit the gym. When my stressors are relieved, holy shit I’m going to hit the gym hard. Since I’ve been missing workouts, I’d go as far as to say that I have pent up energy. I miss moving inanimate objects!