34 Pages Later

The good news is that my first EVER graduate seminar paper is DONE!!! And I am ALIVE!!! Showered? No. But alive? Yes.

The bad news is that I am not as proud of it as I wanted to be. My topic was far too broad for a 20-30 page paper, which I didn't really discover until, well, this weekend, and consequently, the paper wasn't as tight as it should have been. Not that every seminar paper has to be tied up neatly with a bow on top, but that would be pretty swell, wouldn't it? However, as Mary mentioned last week, sometimes, what matters is just "getting the ball over the goal line." So I'm trying to focus on the fact that:

1) Even if the paper wasn't as tightly structured as I wanted to be, I still feel that it was, on the whole, well written.

2) I survived.

3) I now know a LOT about Cicero and, even though I never want to look at this paper again, I completely fell in love with the three letters that were the focus of my paper, and one of them especially remains one of my favorite pieces of writing, in any language.

4) I understand much better how to approach theory and integrate it into my writing.

5) I survived.

6) I have now written a paper that is almost three times longer than anything I wrote as an undergrad, and that has to count for something. Plus, this time next year, I'll be getting ready to write my Master's Thesis, which has to be 50 pages, and now, having written 34 over the last week or so, I think, PISH! 50 pages? Totally do-able.

Overall, I learned a lot. I learned that I should probably start writing massive seminar papers more than a week in advance, because really, all I'll do for the first four days is agonize over the introduction and then on day five realize WELL SHIT. I don't even have a paper. And then I'll cry. So fingers crossed that I choose NOT to repeat this approach next semester.

I learned that I should be thinking more substantively about what I want to write on throughout the course of the semester. I learned that, on a clear day, the view of the sunrise from our study is a surprisingly good one. I learned that my body can handle a distressing amount of caffeine. I learned that, when I'm super stressed, Preston will, no questions asked, pick up the slack around the apartment (he took care of the dogs this whole weekend AND did all the dishes AND cooked me dinner).

And finally, now that it's done, and I'm sitting here in our den, watching How I Met Your Mother with Preston, wrapped up in my favorite old sweatshirt, with the dogs curled up beside me, I'm reminded that, in the end, it's just a paper. You win some and you lose some. I'm pretty sure I lost this one, about which I am (very clearly) upset. But I have a home in which I'm happy, a husband I love, a warm sweatshirt, and dogs that make me laugh. Life is good. And besides, to quote the always appropriate David Sedaris, "When shit brings you down, just say 'Fuck it' and eat yourself some motherfucking candy."

Luckily, I have plenty of candy canes. It's good to be back. Happy Monday.