o, despair

Today, I managed to spend five hours in the library and leave without a trace of evidence. Well, except the tears I shed as I was walking back to my car. Not too many people have seen me cry, and I like it that way. But I think ol' Phil was a witness to my breakdown. Bless his heart.

Anyway, my 8-10 page research paper is due Friday morning. It's Tuesday night. I've spent the past five weeks apartment hunting, and I was successful. I've spent the majority of the latter part focusing on the job hunt. Not successful, which really makes the time I've spent worthwhile. Ha. But looking objectively, if I wasn't looking for a job, would I have worked on my paper? No, but it makes me feel better to be able to cast the blame somewhere, of course. But I always rested assured that I would be okay because, after all, I am Captian Procrastinator the Victorious, right?

I suppose it would be different if I didn't actually have to read the work of literature that my paper will be over. See, my professor has placed us in quite a predicament: He wants us to argue a thesis over a work that we have not discussed in class by an author that we have discussed in class. Well, we've discussed the authors' prominent works, which would be the only ones that we would be able to find enough scholarly discourse on in our crappy library to write a paper of the length he wants. I thought I had successfully conquered the assignment when I chose to discuss Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh. I read the fifteen-page poem last night and was pleased with my comprehension of it. It occurred to me today, however, that what I read was only about one-twelfth of the entirety of the poem that is also considered a novel. I decided I was going to read the novel from a Norton publication because it also contained criticism of the work that I would be able to use in my research. Despite RacerTrac's claim that the book was available, it was nowhere to be found.

So essentially, my options are to write a paper about something we've already talked about or about something by an author we haven't. I sat down and read a couple works by different authors, and then I tried to find some articles about them. Why is the majority of the works selected for the second volume of the Norton anthology of English literature obscure, non-criticized pieces of crap? It was at that point of exasperation that I threw my three-thousand-page (no exaggeration) textbook into my backpack, slung it over my shoulder, cried/hyperventilated on my way to the car, and took a drive right out of Murray.

When I finally returned, I decided to make tater cakes, with a new and improved recipe, with my left-over mashed potatoes from last night. I wasn't hungry. I'm still not. But I cooked them anyway. And I somehow managed to turn what I thought was a potato and a half into about twenty five tater cakes. And I'm not eating them. They're so greasy, looking at them alone could send a person into a vehement series of heart attacks. I don't know what I'm going to do with them.

Maybe I could give them to my professor and hope they suffice as ransom for my grade that is perilously dangling over the quicksands of failure. Oh, wait. He's a vegan, and the tater cakes contain eggs. I have no money to offer him. And I think he might be gay, so I cannot do him any favors. Looks like I have some work to do. Farewell.