Missives From the Fifth Stage of Term Paper Anxiety.

I am deeply immersed in the Asad/Geertz debate, and have settled into the mechanized speed of paper production that comes from realizing that the deadline approaches and there is no way out of it. It has been a rough day, as I am loosing my head with stress, and worse, I definitely feel that I am getting sick. All this, and two papers left to finish!


Nevertheless, as I was cranking out my fourth page on the construction of the concept of religion, my mind wandered, and I started to think of all the ups and downs today brought. I thought of the frames of mind I had entered and abandoned. Then I realized that my beloved undergraduate mentor, Dr. Tom Faulkner, had been a student at Chicago under the famed thinker Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of the well-known On Death and Dying, who, therefore, is something of an academic grandparent to me… And I realized that I wasn’t just having “ups and downs”. I was, in fact, going through the five stages of death… Or should I say the Five Stages of Term Paper Anxiety.

Stage One: Denial and Isolation
“This isn’t happening to me.”
Generally, I’d have to say that I’d been in this stage for quite some time. It started in about October when I refused to start thinking about these term papers, even though many of my classmates were already pissing themselves over them. However, this stage came to full bloom last night when I played on the net and watched movies instead of doing any work… Or this morning when I slept in and then took a leisurely hour-long coffee before getting down to it. I even stopped answering my email because I didn’t want to consider that most evil of questions: “How’s the paper coming?” This broke at about noon.

Stage Two: Anger
“How dare G-d do this to me?”
Well, since my plight isn’t cancer, but a paper, this anger was directed at the professor, and it was on and off for most of the day. I’m not sure, but I think it peaked with my assertion that I was capable of “eating her heart out of her chest with my own teeth.” In retrospect, that was pretty hostile.

Stage Three: Bargaining
“If only I could live to see my children graduate school, then I’d be OK.”
Again, I’m not facing dying of something unspeakable with teenagers at home waiting for gifts of iPods and drives to band practice. However, I too was hit by the dignity-effacing negotiation phase. At about 1pm I was emailing some classmates to ascertain whether the paper needed to be emailed by 5pm, or whether we were talking more about, say, ten to midnight. (No word yet on that, as we are all too crippled with anxiety to email the woman and ask.) Then came the ultimate bargaining, which I even subject-lined “Biting the Bullet.” I emailed the prof for whom I am writing a paper for Friday what the penalty was for handing it in on Monday, and if I could work something out there. No word back from that attempt, either, so one can assume I disgusted her. Oh well, I feel no shame: I was fighting for my life… or at least my GPA.

Stage Four: Depression
“I can’t bear to face going through this.”
This is a pretty self-explanatory stage, I guess. Anyone who has read this blog in the past week knows that I have clearly felt the pinch of this one. However, by way of illustration, by 2pm I was holding my middle, bent over in my chair and trying to cry… But I was too distraught to do much but gape like a fish. Then when I took a break to walk to Tim’s, I actually didn’t mind the thought of getting hit by a car as a substitute for writing this paper.

Stage Five: Acceptance
“I’m ready. I don’t want to struggle any more.”
Now, having wasted my day with the previous four stages, I am actually getting the damned thing done. I am out of options. It is too late for a miracle, so it’s just a matter of producing 20 or 25 pages of something resembling an argument, and emailing it off. I know when I am beaten, and, frankly, getting it done is the most effective way to never have to look at this crap again. I don’t want to fight it any more. I am resigned to my fate. I am actually past the point of stress, and quite literally feel nothing at this point. I’m not happy that I’m able to write four or five pages an hour, nor am I miffed at having to stay up late to write the damn thing. Like a burn victim, my pain sensors have just shut off. I guess my subconscious realized that if it didn’t go set my nerves to screen-saver mode, I’d be out the window by now… with a lot of embarrassment and broken legs, as we are only on the fourth floor.

So, even though my professor broke with Kubler-Ross over her semi-devious attempts to provide snake-oil-like hope to the recently bereft, she seems to have settled upon a pretty nice list of stages here. They clearly sum up, if not death, then at least term paper writing processes…

And just think: I get to do it all again tomorrow! Unless, that is, I can work something out there…