Wednesday, December 3, 2008

So much work...so little out of it...

Here at Hampshire College, we do not have final exams. No, we are too "enlightened" to waste our time sitting for three hours filling in little bubbles. This is wonderful, and what drew me to the school...unfortunately, the guided tour of the campus never mentions the alternative to final exams: final papers.

And unfortunately, I didn't listen to my advisor Christoph (what a cool name, I know) at the beginning of the semester when he warned me how reading-and-writing-intensive my semester would be as it stood, and that I should drop one of my classes in favor of something less...wordy. AND, unfortunately, the 800 or so pages that I have been reading did not give me warning enough as to what was coming.

I have four massive research papers due, each with a cumulative portfolio, within the next two weeks. This is merely for my venting purposes, so you may ignore the list:
Due Dec. 11th: 12 page paper on Infantile Amnesia for Neuropsychology. Portfolio included.
Due Dec. 12th: 12 page paper on the problems of reading Sylvia Plath autobiographically for Alienation (Christoph's class)
Due Dec. 16th: 15 page paper on the limitations of conventional diagnosis in psychoanalysis, using Plath's poetry and exploring various avenues of interpretation for Critical Psychology. Portfolio included.
Die Dec. 18th: 5 page paper on the social implications of Bigger in Richard Wright's Native Son. Portfolio included.

So, I have been reading a lot. Researching a lot. At the end of the semester I think I'll be returning maybe 20 books at once. But with all this reading, I feel as if I've accomplished little to nothing so far, as I haven't put anything useful down on paper.

What does this have to do with knitting? Everything. I've become obsessed with possible projects; looking at the colorful scrap yarn hats I could be constructing, the socks I'm almost done with, the rest of my Christmas knitting, countless sweater patterns for Janterm...even thinking about knitting relaxes me. Hopefully I can channel this amount of focus on knitting elsewhere...namely to the four topics listed above.

Happy end of semester!

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