Cool weather always make me feel nostalgic... I suppose it's from all the late nites I've spent wandering across campus, headed to the library for another god-forsaken term paper. So many cool nites, all nite, staring at computer screens, typing rambling words that may or may not mean something to me or the reader... forced to do it day after day... (hey, sounds familiar) but it was always purging of self. Like a personal challenge.
Fear and Loathing in Buies Creek:
The Savage Journey to Write a Research Paper: A Parody
For some, inspiration is found at nite; some find it in drinking;
Others turn to drugs; the truth has not been found
as to where inspiration originates.
Carmine’s Story
We were somewhere on the edge of campus, just outside of Shouse Cafeteria, when reality began to take hold. I remember a mental clicking of ideas, a few forgotten foggy thoughts, combined with the surreal feeling of finally being on top of things dominoed thru my mind like some sadistic game until the last one fell onto a long hidden obligation.
“Holy shit man!” said I to my roommate as I stopped in horror, my body beginning the denial process in an attempt to fool myself that I was mistaken. Panic is setting in immediately. Surely I am wrong. Surely this is not happening to me on an evening such as this. There’s far too many drugs for me to take, too much alcohol to drink, and cigarettes to smoke.
He turns with that dumbass “What the hell” look.
“I’ve got a research paper due tomorrow for Dr. Vaughan”. Curse that man. The lazy summer evening, with prospects full of fornication, alcohol, and substance abuse and just general degradation and mental breakdown had temporarily clogged my neural system into forgetting this monstrosity of an assignment. “Son of a bitch!” I cried. “Gimme a damn cigarette”.
I lit my cigarette and cursed mentally. Somehow I failed to anticipate this obstacle preventing me from self-destruction. From here on through the rest of the evening I must abuse the night, manipulate the madness and pistol whip the words, and essentially improvise an entire 12 to 15 page paper. How did this happen? I know that paper wasn’t due for at least two weeks. How in the hell did this shit sneak up on me. I breathed in deeply on my menthol. Well, there’s only one thing left to do. Grin and bear it and suck it up. “Looks like my evening and nite are shot homie. I gotta go to the damn library. Damn damn damn”. The repetition of four letter words only served to enhance my anger at this class and myself.
“As your attorney” says my roommate “I suggest you make haste to the library and researching like a bitch”. He was right and I knew it. I hated him for it.
Charles Michael’s story
So…it’s Thursday evening and Carmine and I have just finished eating dinner. My evening plans are something as follows:
§ Take a dump
§ Smoke a cigarette
§ Take a shower
§ Smoke a cigarette
§ Read some homework
§ Smoke a cigarette
§ Repeat as necessary
However, my plans were delayed en route when my rommmate carmine has a near epileptic fit just as we are leaving Shouse, the cafeteria where they serve what they believe is food. “Shit” + “House” equals “Shouse”. Need I say more. He’s got a research paper due tomorrow and he’s just remembered it. He always forgets shit, he’s burnt out more brain cells than he actually has left. He’s an English major so I’m sure he can handle it. And this has happened before. His game plan is generally something like………
Carmine’s modus operandi
8:00 p.m.
Pick a random topic that you have absolutely no idea what it is! Don’t worry about background or any type of class discussion that could possibly help you during the savage journey to the final concluding thought of your paper! That’s the lightweight’s journey!
9:00 p.m.
Next! Run into the library, type the name of the work, or the name of the author/politician/dead guy’s name into the search bar and zoom!!! You instantly have access to a maddening and overwhelming amount of help—incredibly musty, stinky, moldy, books!
10:00 p.m.
GO find the books and chek them out. Don’t even bother looking at the index or table of contents found inside. Just snatch up every book, magazine, microfilm, videotape, or informational device that you can find and save it for yourself. This is gold!!! You’ll never use a third of this tuff but at least you have now monopolized the information that could ever be useful to anyone!
10:15 p.m.
Next in your exodus toward higher education, graduating, and most crucial point, passing this class, check all these books out and haul them back to your room/apartment/girlfriend’s apartment, or somewhere else with a computer that you can beg, borrow, steal, or legally or illegally use. (For those brave enough begin this step by arriving at the library 45 minutes before it closes, get in the check out line, forget your ID which you knew you had to have and RUUUUN back to your room, return to the library, and then finally check out your books). Where are we?
????
Yes sitting in front of a computer typing furiously. Confusion sets in…is this what I was doing… or what I am doing?
Never the less, always the more. How to write a paper.
12:00 Midnite.
Write! Write, write, WRITE!!! Just write whatever you can come up with that barely relates to your topic. Absolute crap, pure genius, take your pick.
2:30-6:00 a.m.
Then, sift thru your book and other amounts of hired crap. Find a quote by some pompous, arrogant, idiotic, tired bastard and make it relate in the most far fetched subjective way possible.
9:17 a.m.
And print!!! Just type once and print! Don’t proof, don’t edit, don’t reread, just print and turn in[1]!!!
8:00 p.m.
Pick a random topic that you have absolutely no idea what it is! Don’t worry about background or any type of class discussion that could possibly help you during the savage journey to the final concluding thought of your paper! That’s the lightweight’s journey!
9:00 p.m.
Next! Run into the library, type the name of the work, or the name of the author/politician/dead guy’s name into the search bar and zoom!!! You instantly have access to a maddening and overwhelming amount of help—incredibly musty, stinky, moldy, books!
10:00 p.m.
GO find the books and chek them out. Don’t even bother looking at the index or table of contents found inside. Just snatch up every book, magazine, microfilm, videotape, or informational device that you can find and save it for yourself. This is gold!!! You’ll never use a third of this tuff but at least you have now monopolized the information that could ever be useful to anyone!
10:15 p.m.
Next in your exodus toward higher education, graduating, and most crucial point, passing this class, check all these books out and haul them back to your room/apartment/girlfriend’s apartment, or somewhere else with a computer that you can beg, borrow, steal, or legally or illegally use. (For those brave enough begin this step by arriving at the library 45 minutes before it closes, get in the check out line, forget your ID which you knew you had to have and RUUUUN back to your room, return to the library, and then finally check out your books). Where are we?
????
Yes sitting in front of a computer typing furiously. Confusion sets in…is this what I was doing… or what I am doing?
Never the less, always the more. How to write a paper.
12:00 Midnite.
Write! Write, write, WRITE!!! Just write whatever you can come up with that barely relates to your topic. Absolute crap, pure genius, take your pick.
2:30-6:00 a.m.
Then, sift thru your book and other amounts of hired crap. Find a quote by some pompous, arrogant, idiotic, tired bastard and make it relate in the most far fetched subjective way possible.
9:17 a.m.
And print!!! Just type once and print! Don’t proof, don’t edit, don’t reread, just print and turn in[1]!!!
Carmine’s dilapidated, sleep addled mind state
“Hey bitch. Wake up. Bitch. Up. I finished my paper. Let’s go get some breakfast”. My roommate, the GQ looking sophomore that he is, wakes with a loud grunt. “Huh?” is his first intelligent mark of the day.
“Up bitch. I’m done with my paper. It’s 9:30. Breakfast is about to end. Let’s go get a grease omelet”.
I stand staggering, my body numb, and I no longer know what day it is.
However, I have finished a research paper for Dr. Vaughan. Charles Michael comes down and we finally get to breakfast.
Charles Michael’s waking thoughts
That worthless bastard. He didn’t’ sleep, he forgot, he decided to wait to the last minute and he’s got to wake me up to get breakfast? Son of a bitch
This breakfast still tastes horrible. This sorry bastard got me outta bed to come eat and now he’s so damn tired he can barely talk. Damn it all. You just let me have to stay up late one nite and I’m gonna worry the shit outta him.
Dr. Vaughan
12:40 p.m. Location-Taylor; Class-Hell
“Aren’t our research papers due today Dr. Vaughan?”
“…Yes but…”
Carmine
12:52
Zzzzzzz……….
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