4,845

Four thousand

Eight hundred

Forty

Five

That's how many words I wrote yesterday. Don't you love the word count feature in Microsoft Word? For some reason, assigning a number to the agony somehow makes it seem more impressive, right?

The outline for my final paper was due yesterday.  I spent hours color coding the different research studies (OCD at all?--it made assembling the information much easier in the long run, so I was glad I'd done it), evaluating the information, and compiling it into a detailed outline. You know it's gonna be a beast of a paper when the outline is 4,845 words--twelve pages of information about teaching writing to fourth graders.  I know.  Not the most exciting topic ever.

The outline was due by midnight, and as I was preparing to submit it at 11:58 pm, I realized that the format was a little off. What can you do at that point?  Not much. You just click "submit" and hope for the best.

Left in the wake of this project:  one 44-oz. (empty) diet Pepsi cup, the carcasses of two apples, a half-eaten sleeve of Ritz crackers, an empty sugar snap pea bag, dozens of used sticky notes, and half a ream of used paper. 

Today, my desk is clean and empty--until the final paper is due in a week, when I'm sure the entire disaster will repeat itself.

I will be so happy when this class is over on the seventh.  I've learned a lot about how to research and different kinds of research, but I don't think I've learned much of any real value.  Welcome back to school--the land of useless knowledge peppered with the occasionally interesting and valuable tidbit of information.