Is this imposter syndrome too?
Jul. 5th, 2011 11:43 am(I remember back in sixth grade--so about 12 years old--I, in the early and less finely honed days of my procrastination, wrote the major research paper the night before it was due, then, you know, got a decent night's sleep and went to class the next day. I got an A on the paper, which rather dazed me, and got taken aside by the teacher and told not to tell the other students I finished overnight because many of them could not do so and I shouldn't make them think they might.)
So let me tell you how I wrote my final paper for my summer class: on the last day it was due, I watched a couple of movies not for the paper and instead for the quiz, went to breakfast with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
niqaeli, took the quiz, took a nap, started watching two films for the actual paper around 5pm, finally opened a word doc and started throwing words at the screen, took a break to go to the store, threw some more words at the screen, and turned it in right at midnight.
You see, I knew I only had to get about half-credit on the paper to get a B in the class, which would have been totally adequate. So I decided not to stress about writing a good paper and just wrote something, because turning in pretty much anything was gonna be okay.
Today I got my grade back on the paper. It was full of superlatives. My paper was mature and focused (focused?! I couldn't even pick one movie, I wrote about three of them, which was something I was concerned about and asked the prof about last week) and could be published or presented at a conference and--
Look, I was seriously wondering if this was a joke, and if it was a joke, how in the fucking hell the professor was allowed to be this much of an asshole.
But the actual grade on it was a 99% and I got an A+ in the class so I guess he meant it and I don't know what to do with that.
I have to keep reminding myself undergraduate papers really kind of suck a lot?
So let me tell you how I wrote my final paper for my summer class: on the last day it was due, I watched a couple of movies not for the paper and instead for the quiz, went to breakfast with
niqaeli, took the quiz, took a nap, started watching two films for the actual paper around 5pm, finally opened a word doc and started throwing words at the screen, took a break to go to the store, threw some more words at the screen, and turned it in right at midnight.You see, I knew I only had to get about half-credit on the paper to get a B in the class, which would have been totally adequate. So I decided not to stress about writing a good paper and just wrote something, because turning in pretty much anything was gonna be okay.
Today I got my grade back on the paper. It was full of superlatives. My paper was mature and focused (focused?! I couldn't even pick one movie, I wrote about three of them, which was something I was concerned about and asked the prof about last week) and could be published or presented at a conference and--
Look, I was seriously wondering if this was a joke, and if it was a joke, how in the fucking hell the professor was allowed to be this much of an asshole.
But the actual grade on it was a 99% and I got an A+ in the class so I guess he meant it and I don't know what to do with that.
I have to keep reminding myself undergraduate papers really kind of suck a lot?
