After an afternoon spent agonizing (i.e., reading some articles and taking a nap to think about them -- which has been the key to success for EVERY paper I've ever written) over a paper that needed to get finished this weekend, I remembered to my glee a marvelous weapon in the good student's arsenal (not as marvelous as the semicolon, of course, but definitely in the same vein) -- to butcher Dostoevsky*, "the most powerful weapon the subjection of the [professorial] heart, a weapon which never fails one" -- Asking for an Extension. It at least works if you get good grades and the teacher likes you.
And here I'd almost forgotten all about it.
Now I am going to do like I said in my request for the extension and get my real-life work done.
The kind that the IRS cares about.
*The actual quote, which I keep in my book of favorite quotes, is from Crime and Punishment, "I, of course, threw it all on my destiny, posed as hungering and thirsting for light, and finally resorted to the most powerful weapon in the subjection of the female heart, a weapon which never fails one. It's the well-known resource -- flattery." (Doubtless my early exposure to Dostoevsky explains some of my cynical tendencies.)
1 comment:
I find your ideas fascinating, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter...
[I'm still trying to perfect the "stay up for a few nights drinking every kind of coffee in the cupboard and feel sick for the next week" method.
It's even less effective at home than it is in foreign countries.]
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