Day 16: Aim to Improve

1/31 Going to bed early was a fantastic decision. I woke slightly after 7:30, and although I was tired I felt ready to conquer that paper…or at least ready to look at it again. After breakfast Katie and I swiftly fell to our work and it went steadily until lunchtime, where I was roughly at the same spot I had been one week previous. (This was impressive seeing as I totally goofed off Thurs/Fri and felt like I had way less vision on this paper than my last). After lunch it was more difficult to focus, largely because the profs came to visit our TA’s (right across the hall), and stood in the hallway discussing our papers. In case you wondered, we can hear EVERYTHING (for better or worse) that happens in the hallway. The papers were pretty good said Dr. Stewart, and I unfortunately wasn’t in the room to hear Dr. Wardwell’s thoughts.

After that the papers were delivered to our rooms, with chocolate penguins (a popular candy over here) to soften the blow. It was even more difficult to concentrate as we struggled, or rather I struggled, to decipher Dr. Wardwell’s comments. The only clear thing written was “evidence?” stamped across my paper at least 10 times. So that was that. Next to distract was the people wandering around sharing their grades in the hallway, but eventually Katie and I determined that we HAD to keep persevering regardless of conversations.
At long last, shortly before dinner, I reached my 5 page quota……..just without a conclusion. I was initially undaunted, knowing that I wanted to pare down a few sections, which would leave me 4/5 lines to conclude the paper. At that moment I took a second glance at the settings and immediately wanted to take vengeance on Microsoft Word’s newest version. For the first time in 2 days, I became aware that Word had automatically set my font at Calibri (Body) size….11. AH! Our font was supposed to be Times New Roman, size…12! You type something out in the former font and change it to the latter, and see what it does to you! My 5 page paper turned to 6.5 pages, without a conclusion. I frantically paged through the different fonts searching for the “comparable” font to Times, which Daniel had implemented last week. Upon finding it, I raced upstairs and burst into David’s room to double check that Daniel hadn’t been penalized for his font usage.

I found the two of them staring forlornly at their papers, and breathlessly proposed my question only to be met with laughter. David chimed in that he was now a user of the font as well—which had transformed my paper to 5.25 pages—and furthermore they were both on their 6th page as well. David had 6.5 pages with a conclusion, and Daniel was in my same predicament. Relieved, I sat down and listened to the similarities between our plights told with much laughter. The dinner bell rang, and about 10 minutes later we realized that we had ignored its call and rushed down, fairly tardy, to eat hamburgers that weren’t really that worth eating, and a dessert that was fantastic!

I wrote my conclusion immediately following, and finished the writing process at 7:30ish. The next four hours were solidly devoted to editing, and after much sweat I got my paper down to 4.75 pages, and Katie and I even allowed ourselves a more reasonable amount of time to exchange papers for editing. The only disruption this time was our TA’s kindly bringing around a tray of biscuits and digestives with words of encouragement to keep us motivated. At 11:58 I grabbed my USB drive and dropped it into the basket down the hall, which was a very satisfying feeling indeed. Katie, Daniel, David and I then relaxed in our room for 45 minutes just discussing life, before they took their leave and bed called my name sweetly.