Research

My current class is frustrating me. I'd just gotten off of a six-week trek into the bowels of Master's level Statistics and was excited to get back to a course that meant I could write. I did have to write some in Statistics and I enjoyed that. It was almost a relief to have all the mathematical answers because then all I would have to do is write them up into sentence form. That was the easy part. So now I'm in a class called Applied Research in Organizational Leadership. Blech. I'm not even excited about writing. Today it took me approximately 12 hours to finish a 2-page paper. Part of my problem was finding articles to support my research topic. I'm notoriously bad at finding articles that support my theories. I wish that everyone would just believe whatever I say without having to have back up. This would help me out a lot. But top that with the stringent rules about having scholarly research articles and we have a recipe for me pulling all of my hair out. My thumb is so cramped from hitting the left button on the mouse to scroll through the tons of articles in my search it's going to be sore tomorrow. My professor is a hard evaluator. Part of the first week is figuring out what that specific instructor is nitpicky about. I had one that despised it when you anthropomorphized things. You couldn't say: "The article states" because an article cannot physically state anything. This one is a stickler for almost everything. I know it's supposed to make me a better writer, etc but I'm a  person that focuses more on content rather than semantics.

Another reason I'm not excited about writing in this course is that I really am not all that interested in the subject. I have no desire to perform research in my future career and I highly doubt that I'm going to have to formulate a research proposal someday. These words may bite me in the end as I had once said "I'm never taking statistics again" only to be enrolled in advanced statistics for my Master's degree. So let's just say that I do not intend to get into a career that includes conducting research.

To add to all of this, I have been pretty cranky this past week. Having to deal with people who are cranky without their office air conditioning, car troubles, and some money woes have made for one cranky chick. Usually I deal with this by being really quiet and going to my happy place (you get there by diving to the bottom of a margarita glass). This week it was all too much and I started becoming quite vocal about things. I mean, why did you have to lean over to me and ask me to ask the girl at the front of the line if the elevator call button was pushed? Can't you do that yourself? You're in your 40s, be independent! And why did that guy have to stand so close to me in the elevator even after several people had gotten off creating room for him to move? I know I smell good and all but I have no desire to breathe in your skin flakes. And why can't that friend ever pick the time and place where we should meet for dinner? Why must I do this every single time?

There was a little span of time between 7PM Friday night to 9PM Saturday night where I was not cranky at all. This can be referred to as the time between when an ice-cold beer in a frosty mug was placed in my hand and the start of writing my paper for class. I almost gave up on finding two scholarly research articles and decided to forfeit the two points it would cost me. I was that frustrated. And now my back is sore from sitting to type up my paper and the shiatsu pillow I bought can only run for 20 minutes or else it might overheat. Did I mention that my roommate's cologne is making me physically nauseous?

But tomorrow is another day, right? And our fearless heroine lives to fight the good fight. :)