What's that smell?

Were you to be sitting next to me this very moment, you'd no doubt notice a "smokyness" about me. You might even say I smelled slightly singed. The source would NOT be fire, so rest assured I'm perfectly fine. The smell is originating from my brain and happens to be seeping from my ears. The cause of all this commotion you ask? Tis the synapses in my brain trying to fire at once! A better description might be to say that my brain is a rusty engine trying to turn over and start.

I am fully into my 3rd day as a college student and not sure how I feel about it. I've had a few mini melt downs lamenting my lazy organizational skills and my impressive ability to procrastinate (thus this post on CM when I should be reading). I do need to give myself some slack, since it has been 20 years since my ample behind has squeezed itself into those itty bitty classroom chairs, but I'm a tad distressed at the number of times I need to read a paragraph in my English textbook. While the material is actually pretty interesting, reading a textbook on Analytical Writing isn't exactly what I'd call riveting. I'm desperately trying to get through the first two chapters so that I can do exercise 2.2. I showed 2.2 to a friend of mine who's already been through this dog and pony show and she made the most horrific face and quickly handed the book back. Ack...or something similar escaped her lips. Let me be more specific, since I'm sure SOMEONE reading this will fully understand what is expected of me and might be willing to draw me a picture (I like pretty pictures and glossy pages...there are too many damn words in this textbook).

Anywhoooo, the exercise is this: I'm to read the Gettysburg Address. O.k easy enough. I then need to identify patterns of repetition and contrast, I then need to look for patterns in terms of Lincoln's syntactical choices (huh?). While I'm at it, I can list repetitions of word strands, then list words that fall into opposition to each other, known as binary oppositions. This, my friends, is Analytical thinking as it relates to writing. This, my friends, is making my brain sputter, spurt and smoke. I honestly, have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I'm scared....mighty scared. Granted, I need to finish the two fricking chapters....which will no doubt enlighten me as to how to proceed with this task. But, couldn't we have started out with something easier? Like, cutting out current events from the newspaper and writing a brief synopsis? Oh wait! This is Analytical Writing, brief synopsis bad....HEY!!! I learned something!!! Baby steps I guess....it's all about baby steps. Now, I would caution y'all to stay back, because I'm not sure my brain is very stable and it very well may explode! Eeep!!!

O.k. deep breaths and I will continue trudging through chapter 1. Ugh, 2 days and I'm still on chapter one. Sigh......