"It is not the ctitic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

~Theodore Roosevelt

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Different Standards?

~When most people see an adult skipping they assume it must be on the way either to or from the asylum.
~Terri Guillemets

Here I sit. Trying to write the research paper that has plagued my life for over three weeks. The one that's due Thursday. That is 20% of my final grade. And I'm searching the internet for critical papers about any relatively short thing we read for class... or just one I read at all. I actually found several articles for a play we read. And I was pretty excited it might work. And I start reading... is it just me or have we always had to introduce the work we are writing on along with the author? Isn't that expected? Maybe I missed something. Because none of these papers have the author. And some of them don't quite sound like the play we read. But I can't tell. They jump into the play without even introducing it. I'm finding it a little frustrating.

Beyond that, I was just thinking how much easier my D&C paper was. Partly because I know the material better and it didn't have to have an argumentative thesis. But also because all my research was easy. I went to lds.org and typed in topics and found talks. Full-text talks right on the screen that I could copy passages out of or print if I wanted. On the library website I have to search, not get anything I want, click on a million links, hope they have a full text, only get a picture version, and refer back and forth from the internet to my document to copy out a quote. Basically, another frustrating aspect of school.

In French today we talked with a partner about our summer plans. Several trips to other countries, going home for the summer, whatnot... I'm staying here for school. My teacher actually called on me and asked about my plans. I forgot how to use the future tense. He said something about my being courageous to stay both spring and summer. I didn't mention I hadn't gone to school in the fall. But some days I think I'm crazy for staying. I know I have to for my scholarship, but still. I'm already getting burned out after my 8 month break from school. Kind of scary.

Anyway, I must get back to my paper. And I have to go grocery shopping today. I'm out of shampoo, staples, just about all my food... my bagels molded yesterday. ~sigh~
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