Thesis

~You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life.
~James G. Bilkey

The last two weeks' lack of a regular sleep pattern caught up to me a little last night. But then... after my four hour nap... I stayed up for two hours and still couldn't get back to sleep. Haha, I've always hated that feeling when I wake up with homework scattered around me, in my jeans, at three in the morning, and realize I had three more assignments I really should have done.

I totally love the nice weather! I actually wore shorts today-though it's supposed to rain in two days, I know. Yesterday I sat outside for two hours reading. It was a little chilly, but worth it. And now I have a wonderful start on my yearly farmer's tan :)

So, I've spent the week working on my Left Hand of Darkness essay. Yes, I procrastinated. Yes, I allowed for a crapy rough draft in hopes I could change enough so my teacher would be happy with the final. I have to say I quite enjoyed the book. It was about a planet called Winter and a human who goes to live there to convince the people to join in a sort of alliance among planets. The most intriguing thing has to be the fact that the people on Winter don't have genders. So, seeing that as an obvious-yet very interesting-topic, I wrote on that. Also, the book I am reading for my English Language course project applies-and adds another reference.

My paper is currently unorganized but I have to say it has a lot of interesting information. In class yesterday we got into three groups and read parts out loud. Of course, my group had the teacher-the other two had girls from the writing lab. Everyone was reading their opening paragraph and then a few other paragraphs. I was stopped after my opening paragraph and received at least five minutes of criticism from my teacher and classmates.

Ya, I know the thesis paragraph is important. But I struggle with them. I usually do that last because then I know what I said-I think it is better to shape one sentence or paragraph to the whole paper than to only use information that fits that one sentence for the entire paper-if that makes sense.

After that not very fun experience, I was thinking. I think too much. But I had to apply it to life. Hmm... this might be hard to explain. To me a thesis paragraph is your pitch; you're simply telling the reader what the paper is going to be about. (I honestly hate when that paragraph goes on for two pages... no need to put all your evidence in there-that's what the rest of the paper is for) It only scratches the surface.

It's like with people. We feel we can look at their appearance, their name, where they are from, and what they are marjoring in and make assumptions. Of course, this list changes depending on the situation. Maybe that's why people don't seem to like me-my "thesis paragraph" sucks.

Then again, I think I do the same thing all too often. Even in just the last week I've talked to several people and got to know them beyond the titles. People become more real. My seminary teacher junior year said, on more than one occation, "If you don't love someone, you don't know them." I've found that to be pretty true. Sometimes it's just hard to get to know someone.

(Also, thanks to Brae, I have managed to change the background. Still deciding if I like it though so it might still change :) )