Sunday, March 4, 2012

The Awkward Moment When You Spend More Time Researching “How To Write an Essay” Than Actually Writing It

Photo Cred to http://forninepounds.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

    
      I have never been a natural writer. When I write, Shakespeare weeps, as if thinking, “How can I have the same birthday as this pathetic young lad?” Of course, he’d say that sentence in his confusing way, but ask me to translate that for you—it’d be a disaster.
            Because of this handicap, I usually end up taking longer than everybody else to write simple paragraphs.
            For example, a week ago, an essay was due for my English class. It was a pain and I actually was up until 1 am editing to make sure there was absolutely nothing that my teacher could take off points from.
            And then it hit me. 
            We were supposed to write an expository essay.
            And I actually had no idea what an expository essay was.
            Yes, this is what happens when you are up at 1 am proofreading your essay that is due in 6 hours.
            So I researched what an expository essay was and realized that I had written my essay… in the form of a narrative.
            Really, Sarah Cruz? A narrative? Come on, you could have made it a little bit easier, but no, you had to put your voice in the writing as well as some pointless anecdotes that your English teacher has no intentions of giving you points for.
            At this point in time, it was about 1:45 am and I was blindly looking for a 5-hour energy in my kitchen, only to realize that this was a house with four children and that the closest thing I would find to 5-hour energy was some tea in the cabinet.
            Total let down, but I took what I could get. I chugged down 2 mug-fulls of green tea and the burning of the hot water definitely woke me up.
            And I wrote that expository essay.
            In fact, I wrote 4 drafts in one hour, and had never felt so utterly accomplished. At 3 am, I did a final check-over, printed all 4 drafts and the final draft, stapled them together and passed out on my desk.
            At 6:45 am, my alarm clock rang and after muttering some nonsense and about 6 of the 7 swear words in one breath, I got up and went to school.
            I turned my essay in that day.
            My English teacher told me to rip off all the other drafts I had made. She only wanted the final draft.
            I have never wanted to yell at a teacher as much as I did at that moment. I should said something super dramatic like, “I put my sweat and tears… and blood… and chugged two hot mugs of tea at 2 in the morning for those four drafts and you only want my final draft?!”
            But I didn’t. Because I consider myself someone with a little bit of common sense.
            Lesson learned: Don’t bother proofreading your essays at 1 am. Just turn the one you have in.
            And that’s the story of my horrible writing day. I’m still waiting on that essay to be graded. I’m going for maybe… a C? Tops, definitely a C.
            Sometimes I really wonder why I joined the newspaper at my school.

6 comments:

  1. SO not true! From the last couple posts I have read, your writing is amazing, and I wish I could write like that! Anyways, I love the stories. They are funny and random, yet they have a point and a "lesson"(I'm not sure if these are really lessons to live by... :)). Your posts are very well written. My only criticism would be to make sure what you write is relative to the story. This is a great story, but parts of it didn't really have to do with your "awkward moment". Still, great job!

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  2. That awkward moment when I stalk your blog and actually laugh out loud at all the posts. Anyways I can totally relate, sometimes I just completely misread directions and do the complete wrong thing. There is nothing worse than the feeling you get when you are about to turn in an assignment and you realize everyone else did it in a completely different way.

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  3. I hate to say I know the feeling, but that could be the worst possible feeling ever. I have learned from situations like these, which I hope you do too, not to procrastinate. If you do bit by bit over the course of a few days, hopefully you won’t be up so late next time! Sorry to hear all of your drafts weren’t needed. Don’t push yourself too hard, it’s just one class.

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  4. Story. Of. My. Life. Not kidding! Especially for English, I can't write at all! Personally, I think that you are a really good writer from the posts on your blog that I have read. But trust me, you are not alone with this feeling. :( Sadly, a ton of teenagers have to go through this. I've learned, though, that by working on it bit by bit, you can a) get done sooner, b) feel less stressed, and c) have time to fix problems that can arise, like this one that you described occuring. Hope this helps! -Katie

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  5. Sadly I have found myself in the same situations where I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to be doing on an assignment and then Google becomes by best friend, and when you feel like you did a whole bunch of work for nothing. As frustrating as it is, I feel like it happens more than it should especially in English class. Part of the writing process is determined by how you change and advise your paper, which I think should be counted as part of your grade. Maybe the next time we get an assignment for English you should ask if that could be factored into our grade, or if we could be graded a little differently. It may not work, but it’s worth a shot! (p.s. you are not allowed to say that you are not a good writer, you are fantastic! I love your humorous voice!)

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  6. You wrote this post a while ago, so I'm curious as to how you feel now...now that time has passed and others have shared their insights with you. Things going better?

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