failing like never before

Stupid Way to Fail a Paper

This entry is about a paper I wrote for my history class. A paper which, I did not enjoy writing, was not proud of, and spent very little time on. Like always, I waited for my ideas to fully mature before I set fingers to keyboard and begin typing. That is to say, I didn't start writing until the day before and ended up spewing random phrases across the page in an entirely incoherent fashion, (or so I thought) and ended up finishing a seven page paper in exactly three or four hours.

I could say, that if the subject had been interesting I would have spent more time and put in more effort and pride. But that would be lying. I wrote the same way I always write: uncaring.

And just like always, I surprised myself. I got a B+ on the paper; the TA was approving of my style and thesis and only took points of because it was too short.

I'm going to deviate from my narrative at this point, to go into another narrative explaining why my paper was too short. The paper was supposed to be between six and eight pages long and when I typed it on my computer it came out to be almost exactly seven pages long. But when I went to the computer lab to print it out, my paper turned out to be a little less then six full pages. Of course, it was due in less then thirty minutes and I had no time to add more content, so I turned it in, fully expecting to receive a low grade.The problem, turned out to be my computer. I use Open Office, an open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. But under Linux, Open Office did not have the ubiquitous "times new romans" font, and instead used a font called "times," which apparently is not the same. Specifically, "times" is a wee bit larger then "times new romans." So while my paper looked perfect in Open Office under Fluxbuntu 7.10, it was far too short when viewed using Microsoft Word 2007 on Windows XP.

Now, back to my original story.

I am not a writer. I am a college student, intending to major in electrical engineering, with a focus in computer engineering. The thing I rarely tell anyone, is that I have almost always performed better in English and reading comprehension, then on math and science on standardized tests. This has been true ever since I was in grade school and took the STAR tests, required by the California government, all the way to the SAT test in high school. The point differences tended to be quite dramatic, not insubstantial. In high school I recall I once received a "failing" grade (if one could fail the STAR test that is) on the math portion of the STAR test and near perfect scores in reading comprehension. This is not to say that I am bad at math, just that I have shown higher potential aptitude for the liberal arts, then for the sciences.

The point is, I want to know what I would be fully capable of writing once I truly put my heart to it. I want to know if I am more writer, then engineer. Because if I am, I wonder if I could really be happy sitting in a cubicle pounding code for the rest of my life.