Category: New Historical

I must’ve stumbled upon some sort of buried treasure or good luck charm because the first revision of my New Historical paper went really well, and Pennington had lots of positive comments. Wow.

Last blog post I said I hoped that I’d be back with a more exciting and upbeat post, and here we are! My New Historical draft is ready for my portfolio!

Of course, there are things I can do to make it better (and knowing me, I’ll put it through another revision), but it’s almost there which is relieving. Also, um, there are only two weeks left of the semester.

Yes, Elizabeth Swann, my reaction exactly. So if I don’t have enough time to do another revision, I won’t worry too much about it, but I think I’d like to just to polish some things up. But I’m pretty much done!

I think my analysis of “The Story of an Hour” was much better this time around; I tried to focus more closely on a woman’s issue at the time (fight for autonomy) and then analyze the story in that way. I ended up cutting out an entire paragraph and rewriting it, which wasn’t fun, but it was necessary.

I’m not going to lie, I’m so excited to put this essay behind me. It was by far my least favorite essay to write so far, and with only one left, I think this one will be my least favorite of the semester. I’m happy that I can consider it for my portfolio, though, because it’ll give me more options at the end of the semester.

In other good news, it’s Thanksgiving break tomorrow! It’ll be really nice to have a few days off to get some work done before the last week of classes. More importantly, I need sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep. Can’t wait. Might go take a nap right now, actually.

Let’s continue with the Pirates of the Caribbean theme, shall we?

I have no motivation to finish out the rest of the semester, so that’s fun. Now is definitely not the best time for me to be losing all motivation, considering how much I still have to do. I would love nothing more than to be done with everything, but the idea of actually doing the things to get the things done makes my head hurt.

After getting comments back on my New Historical first draft I can definitely say that it was my weakest first draft so far. Not that I’m all that surprised. On the upside, it’s nice that I’m finished with my Gender Studies paper so I can focus all my energy for a few days on New Historical revisions before I start the Reader Response paper.

Even though there’s a slim chance I’m actually going to include this paper in my final portfolio, I figure it’s worth it to try and revise just in case a miracle happens and it becomes my best paper. (I also just kind of want to redeem myself.)

Me trying to finish three more papers, a short story draft, an eleven-minute speech presentation, and a website all in the next two weeks:

With this first revision, I’m going to try and be more specific with my reading of the story. I need to hone in more closely on an issue of the time period and then construct my analysis around that. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I’m not sure why I’m struggling so much with this essay or why I hate it so much more than the others. Maybe it’s the time of the semester.

I think everyone is ready for a break, considering all that’s been going on around campus lately, and I’m no exception. At this rate I feel like I’ll be looking like this by the end of the semester:

But it’s okay! It’s fine! Everything’s fine! It’ll all be over in a few weeks and then we all get a long break! It’ll be great! Are all these exclamation points convincing you?

Hope to be back next time with a more upbeat, exciting blog post.

Writing this draft has been genuinely dreadful. Completely awful. Horrific, if you will. I am at my wit’s end, so please enjoy my writing process told by using gifs of Jack Sparrow. Oh, excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Me with all the enthusiasm in the world, sitting down to write my proposal, realizing I had no idea what I was doing or what I wanted to argue:

Me running away from all my open research tabs to take yet another nap:

Me finally gaining the courage and confidence to face this research head-on:

Me realizing I over-researched and had nearly six pages of source quotes to sift through:

Me trying to use voodoo magic to get this essay to write itself:

Me after reading my completed first draft:

I can’t really explain why this essay was so difficult for me to write, but I really don’t think I did well on it. I’m not sure if I did any of it right, to be honest. I think I feel worse about this one than my Close Reading essay. But hey, my Close Reading first draft turned out to be pretty good, so many a miracle will happen. Maybe? Please?

I was so overwhelmed with all the research I did that I feel like my focus is still a bit too general or that I’m focusing on too many different things. Honestly, thank god for revisions because I’m going to need a few. It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll be able to put this essay behind me soon enough. I just need to tackle revisions, and after some direction from Pennington, I think I’ll be just fine.

As Captain Jack Sparrow says, “Bring me that horizon.” Just imagine a much less enthusiastic version of him saying that, and you’ll capture my mood.