Looooooooong exhaaaaaaaale. Hi, guys. It's been an exciting day for schoolwork.* I woke up early in order to finish a story for my writing class, for which I was so prepared that I didn't even have a concept until I was halfway into the second page. The finished product is certainly no masterpiece, but it doesn't appear to be a total disaster. Either way, I'm incredibly nervous, waiting to hear my (hot, British) professor's thoughts regarding my work. He has a sort of no-nonsense facial demeanor, making it very apparent when he approves or disapproves of something, and I don't know if my annoyingly fragile ego can handle too much negative criticism. So far, by the grace of God, he's seemed impressed with the points I make in class, and it's a top priority of mine to stay liked. Perhaps I have issues.
Oh. No, actually. I know I have issues.
A lesser-known fact about me is that, for the apparently laid-back exterior I work so hard to maintain, I'm actually quite the nervous wreck when it comes to those things I deem important. I constantly stare at the digital clock in my car, as if arriving to an unimportant appointment two minutes late will have me drawn and quartered. I've taken ibuprofen before Algebra tests to calm my psychosomatic headaches. I've had dreams haunted by misplaced commas. Before I owned a laptop, I actually got out of bed on more than one occasion, maneuvered my way through the dark downstairs to the computer, and squinted my half-sleeping eyes open in order to check for an imagined punctuation error on a blog post or video description. I know that people get nervous from time to time, and I don't consider myself a particularly nervous person in most regards (public speaking doesn't faze me, and I'm fairly competent at making new friends), but when I feel the pressure to prove my adequacy or responsibility or talent, I slip into a borderline anxiety disorder.
The reason I tell you this is because, today, as I reached for my freshly printed short story to hand in, all the color flushed immediately from my face. Out of habit from producing too many MLA-formatted essays, I'd accidentally underlined the title. Underlined! Short story titles go inside quotation marks. I came out of the womb knowing that! Now I was going to look like one of those ordinary people who don't know to put short story titles in quotation marks. Or worse-- what if everyone else in the class remembered to use quotation marks, and I was the lazy girl who just didn't find things like punctuation important? What if the professor took one look at my story and thought, This is disgusting. Why would I even bother reading such a haphazard, underlined mess?
I ended up penciling in a set of ugly quotes around the underlining, and breathed only once I saw that another girl had forgotten to even bring her story to class. A few minutes after this episode, I realized that it seemed a little silly... and upon my reflection now, it all seems completely ludicrous and deranged. NOBODY CARES. Billboards are made with major grammatical errors. One typo on one college paper doesn't matter at ALL. Why do I get so worked up about such frivolity? Seriously. I'm almost making myself anxious by thinking about my nonsensical anxiety.
Anyway, I ended the day by meeting with half the people I was assigned to work with on a group project for Health (we were unable to contact the other members, because, go figure, that's how group projects always are), just to find out that the "credible" sources they'd found on our topic included what looked like an Angelfire site from the mid-nineties, complete with bright green Times New Roman on a dark purple background. Unwilling to look for polite ways to refrain from strangling strangers, I just sighed and offered to redo the whole project by myself, free of charge. Obviously, they took me up on it, and I spent the rest of my evening manipulating Wikipedia facts to appear researched. High-five!
So. Yeah. I'm sorry-- I didn't intend to be a Debbie Downer tonight. I apologize. To make it up to you, let's communally make fun of a young Mandy Moore. Blog readers, I'm cravin' for you. I'm missin' you like can-day-ay-ay-ay.
Chipotle burritos this year: 13
Subscribers: 26,897
Nail color: "Green with Envy," ORLY
*"An exciting day for schoolwork." I'm Hermi'ne Granger. And... you are?
56 comments:
You offered to do the whole project for them! That's crazy! That...that sounds like me, actually, perfectionist that I am.
Good luck on still being liked in your writing class. I don't see how any professor couldn't like you ^_^
Your paper story totally threw me back to last semester when I printed a major psychology paper and I had a comma for absolutely no reason on the front page. Being completely rational, I obviously spent the next 10 minutes using scotch tape (yes, scotch tape) to "delete" the comma since I had no white out. That was a fun day...
Good luck on your story, I'm sure your teacher will love it! And thanks for the Hermione joke. Now I feel as though I can go back to doing my homework instead of giving up entirely because my eyes are starting to close without my consent. With Hermione in mind, I can gather the energy necessary to finish my work properly. (God, being a nerdfighter is awesome.)
Yes, I totally get anxiety whenever it comes to things I'm expected to be competent at. So if people say "Hey, you're a good writer, why are you so worked up about the essay?" , the answer is that I feel a need to prove myself each and every time.
Also, your post made me laugh at loud when everyone else in my family is sleeping. Just thought you should know, =).
Oh God... The group project thing made me have terrible flash backs to my years as an Undergrad at university. I was ALWAYS the one that ended up wanting to redo everything, or making sure I was in charge from the beginning because I obviously cared more than everyone else did!
The only time this didn't happen was in one of my Chemistry courses, where one of my team mates was THE most ANAL guy and insisted on doing ALL the work, because in his own words we were stupid idiots that didn't know an electron to a neutron and he wanted an A. (GAH!) haha
Boring segue later... I get just as stressed out as you about some stuff! I am sure you did totally fantastic with your story, and looking forward to hearing the reaction from your Professor! DFTBA :)
Yeah, that sounds like something I would do too. I reprint papers for typos, re-do group assignments that aren't quite up to my standards, and re-clean the room after my roommate cleans because again, my standards of cleanliness are much higher than hers. I bet a lot of your blog readers can also relate in the same way...probably why we like you so much is because there's a little of you in all of us! (That's what she said.)
Have you seen Brian Regan's sketch about no-nonsense judges? You should look it up; he is pretty hilarious.
Thabks for giving me my daily dose of Hoover before bed. Now I can sleep soundly! ;P
Also, I CAN'T BELIEVE I READ AND COMMENTED ON THIS FROM MY SEXY NEW PHONE. Soooo rad. That is why today is awesome.
Hayley, you have thousands upon thousands of internet junkies waiting on your every word, regardless of grammatical or punctuated errors (which are about as rare as . . . a hybrid zebra-camel printed BIC mechanical pencil. Yep. The rarest of all mechanical pencils).
BEDA has basically made April exponentially better than March.
kloveyoubye.
Yeah, that sounds like something I would do too. I reprint papers for typos, re-do group assignments that aren't quite up to my standards, and re-clean the room after my roommate cleans because again, my standards of cleanliness are much higher than hers. I bet a lot of your blog readers can also relate in the same way...probably why we like you so much is because there's a little of you in all of us! (That's what she said.)
Have you seen Brian Regan's sketch about no-nonsense judges? You should look it up; he is pretty hilarious.
Thabks for giving me my daily dose of Hoover before bed. Now I can sleep soundly! ;P
Also, I CAN'T BELIEVE I READ AND COMMENTED ON THIS FROM MY SEXY NEW PHONE. Soooo rad. That is why today is awesome.
Honestly, group projects are evil. 99% of the time no one does anything equally and one person gets stuck with the majority of the project or will suffer from a bad grade. I really hate it and at the moment my English teacher seems to want nothing else but group projects. *end rant*
Good luck with your story! I'm sure your (hot, British) professor will be impressed. You're talented and I'm sure he sees that too.
ahahaha monday moore
and group projects. ugh. the worst.
I am so jealous of your writing class! I understand completely if you don't want to post it, but I would love to read an excerpt (or all!) of your short story. Just a thought.
I am exactly the same way when it comes to freaking out about minute things like being a couple minutes late or finding a mistake on a paper. I try and see it through the person I am "letting down"'s eyes. Would I judge someone for one grammatical error? Will the world continue to turn on its axis if someone is a few minutes late? Usually everything a person spends time worrying about is a wad of anxiety and stress and doesn't really matter anyway.
I'm glad you've got the cleansing satisfaction of having done some work today. I feel groggy and useless with all the procrastination I've been overdosing on.
Also, it's awesome that you use Wikipedia as a credible source cause it really nags at me when people say that it's 100% lies. It's only 1% lies, and 99% saviour to students everywhere.
The grammar Nazi-ing is totally relatable. I have to restrain myself from correcting people's facebook statuses even when they're not my friend and would think me an absolute loon for commenting.
Today was awesome cause I bought a 2kg bag of jellybeans :)
The thing is, it wasn't even a typo, it was just a wrong format for the title. I mean, if it were my Junior year English teacher Ms. Gantner, I'm pretty sure you'd have been FUCKED, but I don't think it was.
Anyways, everyone has these idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, and it makes you normal to have them I think. Besides, what's wrong with being a grammar Nazi? :>
I always end up doing group projects myself because you can never trust anyone but yourself to get the job done right. And then I obnoxiously complain about my group members for not helping the entire time while working although in reality I know if let them help than made grade will suffer. My teachers seem to have this theory of pairing up good students with bad students- a practice I can't stand! Just rereading that I get that I sound like a snobby perfectionist- But lets just say I've had some bad group experiences ...
I'm totally with you on the OCD-ness. I appear to be very laid back but am also secretly very concerned with stupid stuff that matters to know one else. That's why I have a hard time with creative things. I'm way too much of a perfectionist. *sigh* I was also the person who did all the work in the group projects. So I know how it is there. haha. Oh goodness. Tomorrow will be better!
Oh My God that angelfire site is the best thing I've ever seen in my life. I lolled so hard. Thank you for that.
I recently turned in a paper in which I used "effect" instead of "affect" in the first sentence. And that's usually something I punch people in the face for doing.
The eight year old inside of me's breath is taken away by the hotness of Mandy Moore. Lordamighty I remember being so turned on by this video even though I didn't know what being turned on was haha.
Hayley, please don't ever think that your blog is pointless. On a night when I spotaneously burst into tears for half an hour over a boy who doesn't like me the way I want him to, it's so nice to have a window into your world and see someone else who sometimes gets worked up over silly things the way I do. You're like Ben & Jerry's for the Interwebs.
Wait. Mandy Moore was an actual singer? Well, I guess "actual" isn't the right word... She looks like she's twelve, so why is she driving?
I have to admit that before today the only anything I've ever seen with Mandy Moore in it was a couple of episodes of scrubs. That's it.
I'm not quite so neurotic as you seem to be about grammar, punctuation, etc. but I do tend to obsess over minor details that will, truly, never matter in the long run.
Actually, I'm quite bad at grammar, particularly my overuse of commas. I try, but generally fail.
I've gotten better at not freaking out about little things since starting college for some reason. I don't know what it is, but there must be something about going to a huge public school that just makes me chill out about school. Never thought that would happen...
One of my favorite parts was the long teal skirt. And then I saw the dance moves.
Man, I love the 90's.
"annoyingly fragile ego"
Oh, it's SOMETHING alright. But I'd probably use different words.
(Hey. Hey. It just occurred to me that I'm gonna see you, if nothing else, TWO MONTHS FROM TODAY. Well, technically yesterday, now.)
I used to be a Hermione Granger too, and then I became more like a Harry Potter, responsible but not that much, and now I realize that every day I'm becoming more like a Ron Weasley. I think I'm worried now.
Ahhh. Normally I would just comment this on Kristina's video, but YouTube is having maintenance so I can't. But this MUST be shared.
THIS VIDEO IS WHY TODAY IS AWESOME.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-ByRBgUuHg
My friends are the best people in the entire world.
So baby come to meeee
Show me who you are
Sweet to meee
Like sugar to my heart
I'm cravin' for you
I'm missin' you like candaaaay!!!!
This is how my night as been. I hope my tweet influenced half of this blog title and a little linkage to some classic MM.
for my online high school pysch class on our first day of live class we had a vertual costume party. We had to come as a person we would want to me, I came as Herminone G.
:]
fun day of studying :] way coolio
P.S. I hate it when I have to carry the whole group project, but I hate it more when I let the group do it and get a bad grade
It's good to know my boarder line nervous breakdown behavior over seemingly unimportant things is shared. And about redoing the project for everyone, that happened to me last semester and my dad scoffed at me that 'what are you gonna do in college? Just redo everyone's project when it doesn't fit your crazy standards? What college student is gonna do that?'. Hah! Dad. Hah, hah, HAH!
I think the best part of that Mandy Moore video is that it was posted by bloodrayne2. Clearly more hardcore than bloodrayne1.
Also, why does the dude need a skateboard when he has a functional Vespa? It's just impractical.
I hate when that happens with group projects. I always end up being the person who offers to re-do the entire project. I'd rather know it was done right than worry about an angelfire-resourced project, so I can relate.
I know exactly how you felt about the project thing, because I always end up taking the whole load. It's not like I don't like what the other people came up with, but-- Okay, that's exactly what I think. I don't want to fail because someone made everything look ugly! So, there I am re-doing everything in one night. Ah men, good night.
As for the short story? I would love to read it sometime. Maybe you could post it on here? I'm sure everyone else would like to read it, too.
Have a good day!
Ben.
Oh, and I'm Neville Longbottom-- Nice to meet you!
I have the exact same issues. I couldn't care less about public speaking etc. but I can spend 2 full hours on a 4 line email to a professor.
I'm not sure if this was meant to be funny but you definitely made me snort into my orange juice on more than one occasion while reading this.
You are not the only one and you are definitely not weird (or maybe you are and I just share this weirdness). I too get weird mini anxiety attacks when asked to cook something in class even though I know how to do it. Just yesterday the (awesome!) British guy I cook with in class asked me to make the very basic sauce for the dish we were making and I just stared at the ingredients blankly for about 10 seconds before realising that I could do it and it was probably the easiest thing he could have asked me to do. I actually had a moment where I very nearly yelled "SAUCEPAN!" after those 10 seconds were over. I'm hoping I get over this. I'm sure you will. : )
Unfortunately my work ethic sums up to nothing compared to yours. I just copied the back half of an Algebra II assignment. Math escapes me....but I do have this weird thing that kicks in during group work. I take over the entire project raving about it being "perfect" and having a "WOW! factor." Ughhhhhhhh.
Excellent Hermione reference.
http://www.tomscott.com/stupidfight/#hayleyghoover-vs-justinbieber
Enjoy.
Hahah I HATE GROUP PROJECTS. Without a doubt, I always end up being the one who volunteers to make things look (and actually be) amazing.
Like nearly everyone else who's commented, I totally understand how you feel and I agree, too! I'm paranoid about everything having to be perfect when I hand in assignments, and I've had more than one dream where I'm in the field looking at rocks and can't understand what they mean (I'm studying geology).
Same for the group assignments. I'm always in charge, because 99% of the time everyone else's work isn't quite up to my standard, and they don't care about their marks as much as I do. (Wow, I sound really up myself. I hope you know what I mean!) Having the final editing rights to a group assignment is the best. :)
Mandy was so ridiculously young. She's done a lot better as an actor and is still a great singer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMB6YOWzQMY
I get like that about my stories. I go back and read it and read it. It's not very good, but it always makes me feel better when someone will tell me it's good. Or if my grammar nazi friend points out there shouldn't be a comma there.
I'm sure if you just think to yourself "It's fine." or "I can tell my blog readers what they said and have hundreds and hundreds of people be mad at them." Or simply, "It's good. Little things don't matter so much."
I'm glad you can share this with us, because I'm sure a lot of people who write get like that. Double during a 'big kids' writing class.
:) <33
You're just a perfectionist. Don't worry - you're not the only one. I'm one, too xD
When reading this blog post I felt you could have been writing about me.
I don't know yet because I am still writing this comment but I have a feeling it will take me around 15 minutes until I am either happy enough with the grammar and punctuation to post this comment or to give up.
When it comes to grammar and punctuation I get so worked up about getting it right it's ridiculous! The main problem is that it isn't just when I'm writing an essay but also when I am tweeting or writing an update on Facebook.
When it comes to school work I am always the person who ends up doing everything. I am currently on a media course which is nearly all collaborative work and so far the groups I have been put into have been awful and it results in me doing everything.
:)
(I really shouldn't have spent so long writing such a shot comment)
And then I go and spell short wrong! :(
**(I really shouldn't have spent so long writing such a short comment)
That's actually something I would do, offer to do the whole project. Why suffer the bad grade, right? At least do it yourself and the way you like it and *sigh* let them take the credit too.
Yeah, last week I had a paper due for Spanish class & I suddnely realized all these things I had missed; I fixed them all in pencil. As it turns out, professors don't care that much . . . So much for my panic attack before class. You are not alone, Hayley.
"Manipulating Wikipedia facts to appear researched"? Did you just admit to plagiarism? Don't you have to add references and sources?
I'm not gonna lie...I HATE group projects for that very reason. It's even worse if it's with a friend, haha. Most of my friends and I were pretty hardcore about projects-and we always had that one friend that just didn't want to do it. Oh dear. Hope all goes well! :)
You don't need to apologize for not constantly talking about happy things in your blog, especially since this post was anything but a downer.
I only have two more months of high school left, and all my grades are fantastic, so I've stopped stressing about schoolwork. Now I've moved on to waking up at 2am and having a panic attack about whether or not I marked Ashton Hall as my first choice for housing... it's really terrible, especially since I don't actually care which dorm I'm living in and I turned in the housing application a week ago and there's nothing I can do about it now.
Group projects are the worst. Usually, I just do all the work because I don't trust other people to do it as well as I can.
Speaking of which, I have a group presentation to give today, and I missed most of the days my group was working on it... yikes.
I had forgotten Mandy Moore was blonde for awhile. And how disgusting the 90's were in terms of clothes... Hahaha, thanks for that.
This is just further proof that you are an amazing person.
-having an "exciting" schoolwork day
-overcoming extreme anxiety (no matter how nonsensical)
-redoing the entire group project
-Chipotle (always)
One of my friends actually had a nightmare about misspelling something on facebook and so she got up in the middle of the night to check on it. I've never had the energy to get out of bed like that, but I do have those kinds of overwhelming fears all the time when it comes to anything that says anything about me.
I hope your (hot, British) professor likes you and your story.
The anxiety thing is pretty much the story of my life. I'm fine in public but just school has given me plenty of mental collapses.
I'm sure you'll be fine though! One time in my English class last semester, my printer printed the margins completely wrong. Oh god.
I think the feeling you got from missing the quotation marks is the same I get about test I KNOW I can get a prefect score on, but of course mess up in some way. For instance we have these annual tests in Swedish, English and math. I find the English ones to be ridiculously easy and thought I aced it. I got the result back... one damn point from a perfect score. In the end I would have gotten the same grade, but still, it's just... gah. It's the coming-in-second-place-feeling.
On a completely different note, I used to love the word "twilight". Oh my, how that's been ruined. Now every time I hear it, and it doesn't even have to be related to that crap, I turn into a some kind of bitter old man mumbling angrily to myself. I just felt like sharing.
GLEE, can't wait!
Bye!
Are we ever going to get the story of how you and your boyfriend met? I could understand why that would be sharing something private, but I'm really curious.
I just realized that the "ORLY" by your nail color was the brand of polish, not the skeptical owl.
http://typo.graphr.net/images/owl-orly.jpg
Hayleyy :) I get excited about school work too. These next few weeks, I have a Psychology paper on Behaviorism - Ooooohhh... So amazing.
Please don't forget to tell us how he liked the story!!! And, what was it about? What was it like? I'm sure you're not being completely honest when you say it was average xD if you turned it in, you must have liked it!
<3
You are adorable.
I can't believe Mandy Moore used to look/sing/dance like that.
Super love and hugs sent your way.
(Tryyyyyyyyyyyyy not to worry.)
Hayley, it sounds to me like you're a perfectionist. Me too, and I spent most of the way through your blog nodding and saying "me too".
Things like grammar and punctuation do matter, especially in class when your work is going to be handed over to a Professor, but there's no point getting worked up over one error. Nobody's going to shoot you for it. (Definitely not now they've seen you with a gun, anyway.)
Hopefully the rest of the world will see the value of grammar in the future but for now it just earns you kudos in the nerdworld. (which is the best world).
PS. Sorry for any grammatical errors in this comment, I'm still learning!
Hayley, I'm working my way to the present after ignoring this blog way too long, forgive me. :-)
Thanks for the Mandy Moore video, Angelfire site, and enjoyable post.
-Phillip
Post a Comment