More That's Not Going In My Paper

I'll be more professional in my paper, but Joe Lieberman, you are an ass.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpockele/ / CC BY 2.0

Although maybe I shouldn't call you that, since you're obviously not working with the Democrats (who chose a donkey for the party symbol anyways?).

The Democrats are quite willing to negotiate, because they need your vote to pass reform. Making new demands every time something is close to being settled is simply an abuse of your current power.

You were all for the Medicare buy-in 3 months ago. What happened? Are those insurance companies in Connecticut looking for a new board member when you're done with your term? Will you be the next Billy Tauzin?

Time is running out. People's desire for reform moves in waves. It didn't quite happen when Clinton tried it, although that was also partly his fault for going for perfect rather than enough. But now the wave is back, and if we don't get this done, it will move past, leaving 1 in 8 million Americans without health coverage. Again.

And Democrats: Lieberman isn't going to go for the public option anyways. And the public option is crucial to making sure premiums don't rise too high. So why not focus your efforts on one of the more reasonable Republicans instead? Someone who cares more about their constituents than about political ideology? Maybe Senator Snowe?

Finals

I thought I was staying relatively focused today, but looking back at how much work I actually did...maybe not.

Oh well, I don’t feel overwhelmed anymore, I think I can finish everything I need to do in time.

Except, there’s probably going to be more to do for Biology of Cancer than I’m realizing.

This poster (made by Cell Signaling Technologies) came with my book. It shows all the known signal transduction pathways involved in human cancer. Captions don't count in my 75 words, right?

My in-depth outline for my paper is already 4 pages (out of 5-7) though! I just need to fill it in.

Writing Essays

I'm freaking out a little bit. I have a 10-page paper due tomorrow night, and as of now, I have written a total of 1.5 pages. That's good, that's 1.5 pages up from last night. Usually I don't procrastinate this much. By this point, I would at least have a full outline, 3 pages or so done, and an idea of where I'm going. The problem is that I'm trying to juggle a (thankfully no longer full-time) internship, an online class that usually has homework due every single day (for which I am writing this paper), and a biochemistry class that packs a whole semester into 1/2 the time (for which I had a huge midterm just two days ago). Still, crap! How am I going to do this?!

Edit: Okay, evening of the same day. Now I still only have 3.5 pages done, but I'm feeling a lot better about this. I think it's partly because I've outlined it, but mostly because I didn't bother worrying about a thesis statement or topic sentences.

This is the way you're supposed to do things, I suppose, but I normally have some sort of thesis to begin with. I will almost always go back and change it, because I'll inevitably develop a better argument as I write, but I usually need something to point me in some direction at the beginning.

Nevertheless, I don't have one now. Perhaps I didn't need it because the prompt is both very structured and very open. It's structured in the sense that there are specific topics I need to talk about, but open-ended because it is somewhat a report and relies on my applying parts of those topics to my own observations. Wait, hmm...I guess that's kind of how a lot of essays are anyways (applying what you've learned), so maybe a guiding theme would have been useful.

Either way, it's too late now, and I'll just have to analyze the topics, then analyze my analyses so I can figure out what my point is.