I just got home from the political debate Wednesday after school. I knew I didn't have time to go, but I wanted to learn more about the issues, and lets face it, I didn't know what I got on the AP psych test during 8th period, but I was pretty sure I was going to really need that extra credit. I look at my assignment notebook. Precalc/stats: self test 2-12, Humanities: do your second mindbook entry, AP psych: read pages 456-466. So the precalc would probably only take 20 minutes, and seeing as I clearly don't learn from my mistakes, I'm going to put my psych reading on hold (this thinking is why I needed extra credit in the first place), and then I have my mindbook entry which will probably take, oh I don't know, forever. "I really don't need this tonight!" I said to myself as I sat down and began to brainstorm.
All the art ones were out because I did a cartoon last week. I didn't have time to start looking up quotes, and the last show I had been to was Billy Elliot in April (which was amazing, by the way). So it took me about three seconds to decide I was going to do something with writing. I was in between short story and letter and couldn't decided. So in classic Debra fashion I fed the fish for more time than I care to admit, and then decided to write a short story. That was step one: Make the decision. I wanted to write the story the way Andrea Barrett did, without planning where my characters were going. But then about a page and a half in I realized that I liked my characters too much to make it a short story, I wanted it to be too complex for four pages.
That was how I got to step two: Changing my mind. I knew from week one that I wanted to write a letter to Tyce Diorio about his cancer dance. I just didn't want to do it right off the bat because I thought it would be kind of hard to get all of those emotions out. I decided right then and there that Andrea Barrett's way worked for my short and unfinished story, so I just let the words spill out. I looked at what I had done and smiled. I like the way my mind works in that respect. If I'm feeling something I don't have to plan it out or try to analyze, it just spills out in a layer of words and feelings so that I can look back on it and say, "yeah, that seems about right." But as I looked over my work I had one more emotion; guilt.
Which brought me to step three: Not feeling like I did anyone justice. I looked over the letter and all the nuts and bolts were there. But it lacked that raw sense of being in that moment. Of feeling what everyone in my family was going through at that time. That was something that I hated, because I knew that it had nothing to do with the letter, its just how I am about my work. I never get my essay quite right, I never get the role I'm playing exactly how I want it, the advice I give never comes across the exact way I intend it too. As I read the letter more and more I felt more comfortable with the work I had done, even though I still had that slight feeling that I could have done everyone more justice. I knew one of the ways I could do that was to decorate the letter with parts of what I was feeling as I wrote it, simply so that I could high-light my points a little better. I was working so hard, and was so wrapped up in it that I didn't notice time passing.
So when I get to step four I begin to: Panic. What was I thinking?!? It was one in the morning, I still had to shower and do my math homework, plus I wasn't anywhere near done. Breathe I told myself. I got myself to relax enough to finish placing everything and gluing all the pages in. Then I stood back and looked at this letter, this piece of art that I created to thank someone else for creating a different kind of art.
I smiled to myself as I reached step five: happiness. When I wrapped the project up I was able to look back and be happy with what I had done, even if I wasn't totally satisfied.
I guess there are alot of things I admire and hate about the way I think. I love that I can sit down dreading something, and then get so wrapped up in it that three hours can pass before I realize I've finished. I like that whatever I'm feeling is so easy to articulate if I decide to put it in words. What I don't like is that need to make my work perfect. I've heard people say that nobody is ever judged as harshly as they judge themself. I really hope that is true. I also wish that I could make up my mind from the beginning. This is definately not the first project I've done where I've decided halfway through to change my angle entirely. I think I would be a lot happier with my work if I stuck with what I picked in the beginning and ran with it.
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