Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Wow!! (The "I Made English 101 My Life" Excuse)

Hey everyone! It's been awhile, hasn't it? I was in this crazy blur of school, moving, turning 19, meetingMARTINAMCBRIDE, stuff like that. No biggie. LIES. Way biggie. I'll be going through these events in wordy posts, just so I have this stuff written down.

In April, amid a blur of English papers I never felt were good enough, I found out I won a ticket to Martina McBride's Fan Club Party in Nashville. I was pretty much on the verge of insanity. I had a one way ticket to the la la land of the past DECADE. That's a big deal for a person my age. I cared about English papers and Nashville for the rest of the semester. That was it. I never expected math to go well, and it didn't go well. Sociology was just unfair, but I'm rambling now...

I stopped blogging in March. I was working on what will be referred to as "The Analyses From Hell".  It was my own fault I made it that way. I had never pushed myself harder. Something was in me that was never there before. I just took my life and basically committed it to writing these perfect papers I still thought seemed terrible.

The effort was worth it in the end for the first paper. 100%. My professor told me I had talent, but lacked confidence. As for the last part of that, tell me something I don't already know... I mean, I thought I failed that paper. I mean, when a professor tells you that you're working too hard on your papers, you MAY just have issues. :P

The paper after that though? I WAS EXHAUSTED! That paper was actually stupid, horrible and all of the things I thought were true about my first paper. I mean, it's not like my professor told me flat out that it sucked, but we both knew it was super weak. I wasn't passionate (maybe because it had nothing to do with Martina McBride, but that is NOT THE POINT!) I was bored, and it showed. I put in as much as I could, and it was only enough for a 90%.

But my drive would come back, and my revisions would give me a 99%. Thank the Lord. Then came the next paper...

I spilled my guts. A lot. I was also on a mission to fix my mistakes. The last paper was going to be forgotten after this was over. I thought this paper was the best thing I had ever written. Leave it to Marissa (aka my professor) to bring me back to the harsh reality that writers are never their best, or perfect. I would send a draft for her to look over at least once each paper, just to make sure I was on the right track. I expected her to make a few small corrections, but I got my paper back with 20 comments on it, the most I'd ever gotten. It sucked. I was not so secretly stressing. I ended up sending her another draft, and getting it down to 8 comments. 97% on that sucker, screw revisions.

If I hadn't put everything I had into this one class, I wouldn't have gotten so much out of it. I gained happiness, confidence, and my "How do you like me NOW?" to all the people who never thought I could pull off an A in a college class where effort was involved. I mean, I feel like having the confidence and happiness I have now couldn't have happened without Marissa. She sort of made me realize that I could do this. And just when you thought this blog post couldn't get longer, oh it does!

There was one more paper- A reflection. Reflect on this crazy ride? I wrote my paper way too quickly and easily. I originally had the idea of not letting Marissa see it or hear much about it until she actually read it. I handwrote the first draft. I just wrote how my confidence in my writing had improved, and I was basically saying, "I am so grateful to you and you have no idea how much you've impacted me." But, my confidence in myself was shaken. I thought I was too emotional, too stupid sounding, and that she'd HATE my paper. So, suckingly, I had Marissa look over it. I'd revised it about eleventh billion times.

If you've gotten this far, congrats! You've reached the conclusion! The last conclusion I wrote had me in tears LOL. I miss writing. I miss it way too much. So, in short, I'm back. I may not be a conventional nail blogger, always showing off cool nail art, amazing new indie swatches, or other perfect manicures, but I'm ready to come back into this crazy blogging adventure.