by
Urac Sigma
Part IX, Word Count: 1800
The story so far: With her academic career uncertain and her academic future unwanted, Stephanie decides to make one, last, valiant, utterly useless token effort.
Nine:
Anatomy of an Essay
Saturday, 7:00pm
I
don’t really know why I’m actually doing this essay tonight. If I knew
anything about psychology (in which case, I wouldn’t be doing this, I’d be
doing a psych essay instead), I might say that it was an attempt to validate
myself and make sure my last month or two of school was done right.
But I don’t know anything about psychology. I know about me, though, and I’d
say it’s more likely that the bloody thing’s due on Monday. Also, if I lock
myself away doing this, I don’t have to worry about whether to tell my dad
about the police putting me up for the night.
Anyway,
here I go. 1200 words. Maybe if I found a six-pack of beer, and let myself have
one every 200 words…no, maybe then the essay would be a load of shit by the
end.
7:05pm
The title page is half-written.
No, I really have to change the wallpaper on Windows. It’s suddenly
distracting me to the point of, well, distraction.
7:15pm
Finally settle on a wallpaper I
like. Back to the essay.
7:16pm
Sigh and decide I better change the wallpaper back in case someone walks in the room while I’m using the computer.
7:18pm
Finish the title page, which has brought me up to 121 words already, according to this computer. See, you should always write the question out in full, just like your teacher tells you. And now, on to the essay itself.
7:19pm
No, dammit, the font on that
title page needs fixing.
7:25pm
All right, I’m happy with the
font now, so onto actual essay words about actual history in actual Europe,
and—ah, hell. I’m already distracted. I may as well take time out to watch Relic
Hunter. I mean, I only watch it because, um…it’s a media thing. The
camerawork is very…uh, that is my dad leaves it…ah, shit. Why don’t I
write my diary in pencil?
7:45pm
The phone rings and it’s for me. (Great, now not only am I watching Relic Hunter, I’m missing it.) It’s Mario’s voice, telling me he’ll do it.
Hang on, did I miss a bit? ‘Do what?’
‘Dizzy and I were talking after you went home today. I’m in on the assignment.’
‘Hang on, what—’ But he’s talking to someone in the background now.
‘I just had to…yes, it’s a girl…no, not…ah, all right…’ He comes back on loud again. ‘Sorry, Mum needs to use the phone…I’ll talk to you later.’
‘Wait. Just…’
Click. Beep beep beep beep…
Great, has Dizzy told him about the media assignment and not me? Or was I just too wiped out to listen?
I’ll call Dizzy next ad.
7:52pm
Um, next ad. Really.
8:00pm
I cave in and go to all the effort of turning around on the couch so I can reach the phone.
‘Ste-eph! I was watching Relic Hunter!’ Geez, some people have no shame!
‘Mario just called me about the media assignment,’ I cut her off.
‘Yeah, he’ll do it! Isn’t that great!’
I remember comics where icicles come off people’s speech bubbles, and try to make my words sound like that. I don’t think it works (and it’s probably wasted on Dizzy anyway). ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been told about my media assignment yet…’
‘Oh. Well, um. You know, some of us don’t spend all of our time lying around gaol cells.’
‘Hey! Low, Dizz. Very low. Besides, it was a lock-up, not a gaol. Just tell me the idea.’
‘Oh.’ And she goes on to tell me. Her ‘webcam’ idea, she calls it, despite the fact that it’s a lot older than even the web, never mind cams on it. She wants to take some poor bugger (read: Mario) and pretty much strap a video camera to their head (my heart skips a bit then, I don’t trust her not to mean literally) and see what they get up to all day on, well, any old day, really. You know the sort of thing. Sylvania Waters only with less grog. (I can only imagine that last part is why she asked Mario and not Annika.)
It actually sounds like a good idea. A nice way to not do a lot of work, but with clever editing, probably a decent mark. I tell Dizzy we can work the details out later, I’ve got an essay to finish.
After I finish watching this.
8:30pm
All right, it’s finished. So
I should get back to work. Only when I go to turn the TV off, The
Bill’s on. I don’t usually watch The
Bill, but it looks like this one might be interesting, so I might try it.
8:31pm
OK, OK, I’m going.
8:32pm
Look, now I was so sure I’d gotten underway on this before, but there only seems to be 121 words there now. Anyway, I introduce the essay by telling the reader exactly what we’ll be doing. Which is how you write an essay, right? So all that means is I have to write the question out in different words (which is what you do, like I said) and put some other crap around. Ctrl-T-W…and there’s 302 words just there. One-quarter done. And to think you thought I shouldn’t have had a break to watch television. (Note from self: That was nothing to do with your essay plan, that was to do with your taste.)
No problem.
8:55pm
523 words done. See? No
problem.
9:55pm
Shit.
576 words and I’ve realised that I haven’t done as much research as I thought. If you spend most of your history classes writing your diary or bludging off in the common room you tend to only take in so much information about Vikings. And I know for a fact that my textbook is sitting underneath a pirate copy of ‘Romeo Must Die’ in my locker. Who else is in this class with me? Dizzy. No, well, she lost her textbook ages ago. Or did I lose mine, and that’s what’s sitting in my locker underneath an illegal Jet Li? Who else? Annika. I check the time. She won’t have gone to bed yet. Sorry, she won’t have gone to sleep yet.
I normally wouldn’t do this to her, but I’m desperate so I’ll take any excuse I can get. I make the call only to have her mother answer and tell me that Annika’s not at home.
In an impulsive bitch moment I should have really kept to myself but can’t help when I’m 624 words down and no end in sight, I end up saying, ‘Yeah, she’s probably out having sex.’
As it goes, not only shouldn’t I have bothered but the reaction is disappointing. Just a sigh from Mrs Gorski and ‘Yes, I expect so.’
Right. No choice, then. I’m going online.
I’ll check my mail and get
right into it.
10:30pm
After spending longer than I should have on that E-mail I told you about (but there was this really funny list of reasons why men and women are different) I finally find a site that, believe it or not, pretty much rounds out the rest of what I have to say. Could it really be as easy as that?
No, because that would be plagiarism.
Well, what if I put it into my own words as I went?
Maybe, but the work would still be ripped off.
Oh, look, this is one obscure university site somewhere in bloody America! Who’s going to know?
Yeah, but that would just be my fucking luck, wouldn’t it?
I wrestle with this one a bit more, then I rationalise it. Reading this then twisting it round back into my own words, well, that’s research, isn’t it? Especially if I make a really strained connection with something I’ve already written there. Besides, these Yanks didn’t really invent this stuff, they just copied down what the Vikings did a hundred years ago.
Thousand, sorry. Really I meant
to say that.
11:10pm
All right, here we are. I’ve researched that stuff into my own words, I’ve said everything I want to say, I’ve written a nice start, body and conclusion, and…
…I’ve only got 857 out of 1200 words. Great. I’ve never understood how people can be talking about their essays or whatever and stress about keeping it down to the word count. Why should the rest of us be penalised for getting to the point quickly? Damn.
Oh well, time for the only real
tricks of essay writing I know. First, get rid of a whole bunch of contractions.
Couldn’ts become could nots, didn’ts become did nots, and so on. OK,
that’s taken me to nine hundred on the dot. But that was the easy part. Now,
to read over the thing. See, I’m being good, just like I learned like a good
student in Year 7, before I discovered what boys were (that would be in Year 11,
when Annika told me all about them).
11:35pm
Right, well, I’ve managed to turn some of my nice, quick sentences into loads of waffly bullshit that sounds really, you know, historical. I also pumped out a good fifty more words explaining what longboats were (you know, in case my teacher’s forgotten).
That brings me up to…let’s see…1076.
Still more than a hundred short.
Damn.
I look the thing over again.
Are there any more useless details about which class I’m in I can put there?
No, I’ve even added the room number, which shows how desperate I was getting.
For a second I think about putting the origin of the name ‘Viking’, but all
I can think of is ‘because they viked a lot’, and I have a sinking feeling
that’s not actually true.
Sunday
12:05am
This is way past my bedtime. Well, it is if I’m doing essays.
Now, wait a minute…
What is it they say? Ten per cent either way on the word-count, isn’t it? Yeah, it is, I remember now. Meaning I can afford to be behind by 120 words.
And I’m still four short, but I know what to do there:
I scroll back up to the title page, and add:
Word
count: 1080 words.
Ha. At last. I’ll print this
bastard tomorrow. I’m going to bed now.
1:02am
All right, I’m printing it
now. It’s done, all right? Bloody
hell.
Monday 10:00am
This morning while I was grabbing my shoes, guess what I found in the bottom of my cupboard? Yep, my textbook that I lost. Meaning that it’s definitely Dizzy’s one nestling beneath Jet’s big attempt to use more than twenty English words in an American movie.
I bitch about how useful the book would have been as I finally give one copy back to her.
‘Eh? What for?’
‘That essay I was doing on Saturday,’ I remind her.
‘Oh, right! Were you doing the history essay that night? Yeah, probably a good idea to get that out of the way now.’
‘Well, I thought so.’
‘Yeah, after all, there is only a week left on it.’
She goes off to the canteen, leaving my poor brain to try to work out where it slipped between my internal calendar and the one on the wall.
A week?
I hate Dizzy sometimes.
Stephanie’s
adventures will continue…
