This is the most stressful time of the semester. No, it’s not finals. I never stress about those. No, this is “dead week” when the professors are supposed to not test us. So, of course it’s the busiest week of the semester because everything is due.
Since I will have to write more than 10,000 words in new papers alone, never mind the ones that still need to be rewritten (oh, like the one that’s so bad it got no grade at all), there will be most likely no blogging.
But to tide you all over, I wrote a very bad poem about “dead week.” Just in case you were wondering what it is I have to do—and I admit, my list is pretty light. E’s been working non-stop for the last three weeks with no let up, and Ame hasn’t seen her boyfriend for more than 2–3 hours a week in awhile. As English majors, we’ve got it pretty easy. And no group projects, thank heaven.
So, I’m turning my radio up, tuning the world out, and going to give myself finger-cramps before the week is out.
Poem after the jump. I didn’t want to torture you with my bad poetry unneccessarily.
Dead Week
They say that this is dead week.
There was a memo sent out,
Instructing the instructors
“No tests this week, review only.”
Isn’t a paper a sort of test? And what about
Projects and assignments and reports;
Aren’t they all tasks designed to see if
We’ve learned what they’ve set us?
By the end of the week, I will have written
How Ethnicity Affects My Life:
Three pages double spaced,
About how my family has tried —
In the way that only a caucasian family can—
To return to roots that they’ve
Never had, to give their children
A sense of belonging in a world
That everyone assumes belongs to them.
Town Hall Rhetoric: Who’s Listening
2000 words not about the topic—
Education in California, and the budget
Cuts that are affecting the CSUs,
Just in case you were wondering—
But about how the participants
Responded to each other, or didn’t.
Gender and Sexuality in Dracula:
The longest of the papers, but the easiest—
If I can move past the the literary
Criticism that bewildered while it explained
Gender and sex, sex and sexuality,
Sexuality and sexual proclivity—
I could write this paper in my sleep,
And the way this week is looking,
I just might.
If this is supposed to be dead week—
Not even counting the rewrites of past
Papers still due in a final portfolio,
Or a graphic poster advertising a farmers’
Market that the English majors
Have been copyediting as they go along,
Not part of the assignment, but we can’t
Ignore bad grammar and construction,
And the most glaring of errors, 12noon.
And of course there is a press release
For the chapbook we’ve been working
On all semester, an in-class assessment —
Then obviously, what they mean
By dead week is that by the end,
With all this work set, I’ll be dead.
Resurrection just in time for finals.
Um, since you closed comments on your Private review, I’d just like to say I agree with most of your points. The plot is predictable, and similar to other books. Those faggots who are insulting you must be the kind of people that like to read that series because their “unpopular.”
The series does get better, but I’m begining to dislike them. In Private, Kate Brian keeps adding new things to make it interesting, instead of plotting it. Like she needs a new topic, so she adds some random gay thing….
Anyway, I just wanted to say I mostly agree with you, and those schizos who insulted you are pretty sad.
lisa this is dustin i would like to be friends so call me, sorry for what i said to