paper writing (yes, another one): what's a thesis again?

2 questions:

1) Why do professors, time and again, insist on assigning papers that are due during the last week of classes AND final exams/final papers? When I am finished with a paper, the last thing I want to do is write another one for the same class. Diminishing marginal returns, people. This is why we need Econ-English lit hybrids like yours truly.


2) What's more contrived than the "thesis statement"? Sometimes, especially in English classes, I think it would be better for professors to assign a position and ask students to defend it (or contradict it). Let's be realistic here. My feverish, caffeine-hyped self is not going to come up with anything unique to say about the book in the course of a couple of days. Why don't we just drop the pretense and admit that what you really want is for me to show you I can form a cohesive thought and write about it in a somewhat organized fashion. The thought itself (unless it's ridiculously idiotic) hardly matters. That's my problem with writing papers lately and my self-justification (excuse?) for not getting the grades I got first and sophomore years. My efforts to write something that actually matters rather than to regurgitate class discussions, adding on a layer of BS for good measure, might not yield satisfactory results, but at least they feel more genuine to me. Not that that matters here.

Disclaimer: My mood is probably going to be pretty foul these last few weeks. That's what papers and regrets and stupid family/"personal" issues will do. Well, at least I'll be all the more happy during Commencement to be rid of the frustrating constraints of academia.

... AND I'm going to Believers Never Die, Part Deux on Tuesday! They understand my *troubled state*/*emo moments*. Or pretentiousness ["frustrating constraints of academia"?? Seriously, did I really just write that. What a poser I am. But I still am very bitter inside.]

French

I am writing a paper for my Business French class about the constitutionality of racial statistics in France, and I wanted to say "As Louis Schweitzer claims..."
I had to look in the dictionary to find that the French word for "claim" was "prétendre," whereas just a few months ago I would have known that. It's not a big deal, but it is disappointing how fast languages can be forgotten. How am I supposed to keep up my Mandarin, my French, and yes, even my English (in the literary sense), and try to learn German [so I can get a rotation in Frankfurt] while I'm working?

College might suck in a lot of ways, but at least it shoves "academic opportunities" in your face. Without this framework, it's up to you to do the work in seeking them out, and considering my laziness, I don't know if I will.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE" (5 points if you know what I'm referencing here)

When I exclaimed, "Happiness is complicated" to a professor, he replied, "Maybe happiness is just being."

I'm not usually one for the psychoanalytical stuff (I never did take AP Psych in high school and I have no idea about anything really), so I actually don't have a clue what he means. I think, though, that part of being happy is just not thinking about being happy. John Stuart Mill puts it this way:

"But I now thought that this end [one's happiness] was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness[....] Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness along the way[....] Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so."

Or, in a way, "Ignorance is bliss." Maybe thinking too much is precisely what's causing my moods to be so spastic these days. How's that for an excuse to be exempt from my final exams/papers?

actually posted by somebody as an online comment:

"everybody knows that the male is the stronger species"

immediate reply:

"i didn't realize that 'male' was a species"

...

pwned.

happiness is the most complex thing in the world.

EDIT:

walking back from the gym, i saw an eagle flying onto the lamppost by seelye hall. maybe it's a sign.