I checked and I don't think there's a better place for me to post this, but if there is, feel free to re-direct me. I swear I'm about to freaking cut off my toes and bury them ten feet in my back yard using nothing but a spork as a shovel. I am so effing frustrated. It's my last week of school before finals, and I have a research paper due for my Western Civilizations II class. Well...it was due Monday. The thing is, I was in the hospital last week due to constant vomiting and severe dehydration. Then Sunday night my dad overdosed on alcohol (he's been alcoholic for forty-five years...he's not married to my mom anymore, of course) and the doctors said he's going to die if he doesn't stop drinking. And, of course, he refused treatment. It's the week before finals plus I've got all this personal stuff going on. Needless to say, I'm extremely stressed out. So I got an extension from my teacher, and he said I could turn in the paper Wednesday or Thursday. But when I got the extension, he handed me back my annotated bibliography that I had given him over a month ago, and he completely rejected my thesis. I revised it, but in doing so, all my research seems to have become less useful, if not worthless. I got discouraged, and now I've got this writing block. I tried looking over my sources again. I tried free-writing, only to realize that what I wrote didn't support my thesis at all. I tried outlining. I realized my outline wasn't very good, and so I consulted my mother (who is a professor of English). She just went off on this tangent and didn't help much. I'm about ready to give up. But I can't, because if I don't turn in this paper I'll fail the class. And if I fail the class I don't graduate next week. I want to give up. Anyone have any words of motivation for me? Please?
Wow! There is al ot going on in your world right now. Sucks. How about taking a breather for a few hours, clear your mind-go for a walk. I find al exercise helps. Gets the blood and writing juices flowing. Even jumping jacks will do some good. Or if that doesnt go well. you can try the exact opposite-try laying on your back on the floor and listen to nothing, and think of nothing. Only your breathing. open some windows or turn on a fan to get the air circulating(cooler the better) clear out that clutter. a meditation type thing. on what to do about your family problems-I cant say. Not a lot you can do really. Hope you are over your sickness. With your writing I would just start on page one line one and pretty much start over. Once you go the mojo going it will flow freely. If it is too long to redo then I would start off by taking out the junk that is no longer relevant and see how it looks from there-then fill in the blanks Hope I was some help-good luck
Take an hour or two and relax. The stress will kill you. Meditate, play a game, run around in a circle screaming. work out, something, just get rid of the stress. Then go to the library, grab any and all books you might need. Skim read, and write as you skim. It doesn't have to be organized, just the basics, in your own words, footnote heavily. Now as your falling over in exhaustion, I would recommend buying a large bottle of pop, heavy in caffeine, and a large tub of vanilla ice cream. Get a large container that has a good seal, mix the ice cream with the pop, about half and half. Shake well. The caffeine and sugar will give you the necessary rush. The milk in the ice cream will prevent an upset stomach from the caffeine, unless you're lactose intolerant. Now that your halfways awake again, read over the stuff you wrote, organize it, fill it in better, ensure everything is properly footnoted. Do this twice, unless you only have five minutes left to hand it in. If you need extra time get security to time stamp the cover page early. Make sure the professor has already headed home on the last possible day. (Also make sure the prof didn't specify it being in his hands by Thursday.) Then run to security with your cover page, and an old essay stapled to it. Ask them to time stamp it. Run home again, carefully remove the time stamped cover page and save it. Use the extra time to finish your project, staple the time stamped cover page onto the proper essay, run back to school at 5 or 6 am, and leave it in your teachers mailbox, or under his office door. He'll think you just missed him the night before, and you'll still get full marks. You won't get a great mark, but you should pass. Remember don't panic, just write quickly, somewhat intelligibly and be prepared to pull an all nighter, or two. Good luck Edit: If you just can't complete it in time, I would recommend just breaking your leg, instead of cutting off your toes. It's much less permanent, and you can explain it away a lot more easily. Just pretend to be in more pain then you actually are, that way the doctors will keep you overnight for observations, and the doctors note will look a lot more serious. (And no I've never tried this, been tempted, but never quite went through with it.)
Thanks for all the suggestions. The ice cream and pop part sounded really nice. Unfortunately, I was in the hospital last week because I couldn't stop vomiting for 12 hours straight, so I'm still trying to go pretty easy on the food thing. Maybe next week during finals I'll give it a shot, though. Thanks. Feeling much better right now. Haven't gotten much more work done, but I took a long hot shower and talked to my boyfriend for a bit, who managed to calm me down. I've resolved to get as much done as I can tonight and then talk to my professor tomorrow and see if he can give me any direction. He's a pretty easy-going guy. He might even let me turn it in as late as the day of my final if I express to him what's been going on. I'd really like to get it finished tomorrow if possible, though...I'm tired of having this hanging over my head. EDIT: Also, I'll look at some pictures of baby penguins. Who can help but smile at those fuzzy little critters?
I just went to the link in your sig and read your profile, Domoviye. You watch Firefly?! Firefly's the best show ever! My friends and I have "Firefly Nights" where we all get together at one of our houses and eat pizza and watch Firefly all night... I also didn't have T.V. growing up. It's always odd to find someone else who doesn't watch T.V. very much (or at all). But I discovered T.V. via the internet over the past year or two. For this reason I'm a little obsessed with a few television series right now... EDIT: Does my reading your profile show that I'm not working on my research paper at the moment? Woops!
Glad you're feeling better, and hopefully your prof will give you the extra time. As for Firefly, I've only watched the pilot, and the movie. I had no cable in University, and could only watch it when I was at home on holidays. But I really want to buy the entire series when I have the money. Now enough dawdling, go do your homework.
Don't really have a lot of advice to give you as i'm terrible at motivating myself to work. However, I just thought i'd wish you luck - let us know how it goes. Try and stay positive - I hardly ever manage that, but when I do ... it works.
don't you have a school counselor you can go to, who could get your prof to cut you some slack due to the circumstances?
Whatever happened to that wonderful creature called compassion? Best of wishes. I wish I had a chance to do tests. And not to mention that alcaholism is such a sad disease. Again, best of wishes and lucks and may karma and compassion find you. No matter what happens, there are people out there cheering you on!
Thanks for the nice-itivity everyone. I talked to my professor and he gave me until my final date to turn in the research paper, so I've got the weekend and Monday to work on it yet. I've gotten seven pages in at this point and have not yet cut off my toes, although I'm beginning to lose the ability to concentrate and I feel like I'm losing focus towards my thesis. My professor said my worst writing is better than most of his students' best writing and that even if I completely fail my research paper, as long as I turn it it, I can't get less than a C in the class (I've maintained an A all semester). His words made me feel a little better. Still feeling extremely stressed, however. And it's not helping that I haven't had anything to eat in about 12 hours...I better work on that. Domoviye: You should definitely get the entire Firefly series. The series is much better than the movie. The development of Mal's character is the most amazing thing. Look into seeing the series sometime EDIT: Did I mention I haven't cut my toes off yet?
Glad to hear things are working out. With the extra time, get some regular sleep, and eat. And make sure you hand it in, so that I can congratulate you on graduating. As for Firefly. as I said once I get the money, I'll grab it. (Actually once I have money, I'll be grabbing a lot of things, but that will be near the top of the list.) Cheers
Glad to hear that you're feeling a little bit better about it all, and that you still have all your toes Keep at it...
Yes you may! Domoviye--I understand the being broke thing I could really use a job right now but I'm simply too busy... Which reminds me of a story! The other day I (apparently) dreamed that someone told me the gas prices were going to go down Friday so I shouldn't buy gas until then. However, I confused it with reality and told my boyfriend that we both shouldn't buy gas until today. Then today gas went up to $3.20. Very uncool, especially since I'm out of gas now...Le sigh. Kit603--Thanks once more for the encouragement. The paper's going much better, but I've still got a bit to go...couple pages. I was feeling pretty good about it until last night when I ran completely out of energy. I took a break from the paper today since I've got this weekend to work on it. Bad thing happened today. My teacher (the one I'm writing the research paper for) pulled me aside after class and told me he didn't think I could handle university next year. My mom put him up to it. (To clarify, I'm graduating from high school a year early, but I've taken 18 hours worth of college classes at the community college while I'm still in high school. The class that I'm writing the research paper for is one of the classes at the community college). Apparently my mother talked to him and told him she didn't think I could handle it next year. Completely uncalled for. I can handle university next year. In fact, I expect it to be a bit less stressful because I'll be away from all my family issues and I don't expect to be spending any time in the hospital next semester. Plus, I'll only be taking college classes, instead of high school classes with a full college schedule on top of that, plus extra curricular activities. I can handle it. I'm not worried. And if my mom's worried about me going away to university, she should talk to me about it instead of embarrassing me and making me look like a bad student by talking to my teacher.
Yeah, I would be really P.O'd if my mum did that to me! and as for fuel prices, I work in a service station and people complain that it's $1.38.9 a litre. Now I have something to tell all the winging buggers! well.. not all of them are bad but when they mention it... Tell you what, when I open my resteraunt, I will employ you! Good wages!
Here in Canada, we're spending between 1.24.5$ and 1.12.3$, depending where in the country you live. On a short vacation I just got back from one gas station if you have a card charged 1.10.5$. So yeah, glad I don't live where you do. Phantasmagoria, personally I think you should tell your Mom to mind her own business and do what you think is best. I've had the unfortunate experience of having a year off between high school and university, and one year at home after university living with my parents. I don't have the family problems you do, but its still ridiculously easy to get on each others nerves. So stick to your guns and head off for academia. Good luck and keep us informed.
My best friend is from Canada...lives here with a green card. That's just a random bit of information... I confronted my mom. She wasn't happy about it. I wasn't happy about it. But whatever. My brother informed me that he had the same situation his senior year of high school. He got really stressed out with school work and had some issues with depression. Mom didn't think he could do it, either, and had a teacher talk to him...the same teacher, actually. You'll all be glad to hear that I finished my research paper! It didn't turn out half bad. I've got seventeen credible sources of different mediums and I've argued my point as coherently as I was able, although it's a page short (Supposed to be 10-15 pages, and mine is only 9). I'm very happy to be finished. I'll turn it in to my teacher tomorrow morning. I intend to nail my final in his class to prove that I'm capable of doing well in college. I also finished my exit essay for high school today (it was no big deal...just a hassle) and I'm nearly finished with a short paper for another class. I'll finish that tomorrow and study for my finals. By Tuesday at 3:00pm all my school-related stress will be gone. So I'm feeling a lot better now that I've just got about 36 hours of all this crap left. Life is looking up! Plus, my boyfriend has agreed to take me to the zoo and the art museum after school lets out (Penguins cure depression/stress and art history is my passion. I've got a nice boyfriend who is willing to do these things with me I don't think he really wants to go to the zoo, seeing as he's almost 20....'course, I'm a bit too old for the zoo, too. But who cares! We both love art history, though, so the museum part should be fun for both of us.) Sorry if this post is a little incoherent. I've written 18 pages with in a matter of a few days, so I'm a little brain dead as far as writing goes!
Oh...and with the gas thing...I'm USD per gallon...so with the currency and volume conversions you guys might actually be spending about the same amount on gas as I am...I don't know why it took me so long to realize that...
Incoherency is allowed after all of that. Congratulations on finishing the projects and standing up to your Mom. Now get some sleep and try to wind down. It sounds like you need it. Congrats again. Edit: we're actually spending a bit more. With the currency change, and the differences between gallons and litres. But it still sounds better.
Glad to hear you've sorted out your paper I wish I could go see some penguins :O I would have been furious if my mum had interfered like that, but she's the opposite and has no interest what so ever lol...
I think you are about (very roughly) maybe twenty or thirty cents more than us here in Australia... but while it might not sound so much, people will comlain! But the main topic at hand.. I'm pleased that you have been able to sort things out! YAY YOU!
I'm jobless currently and my family doesn't help me pay for gas or car insurance or anything car related...so all my money goes towards that... I can't do the sleeping quite yet. I've got 7 finals tomorrow...but then I'll be finished! And thanks to everyone for being so nice
