I’m feeling very good right now. It’s almost 3 in the morning, and I’m wrapping up my first paper of the semester, an examination of the law of attempts for my Philosophy of Law class. I haven’t found the class incredibly stimulating, mostly due to the direction of the discussions. But the subject matter itself is fascinating, and I’m loving this paper.

Did I start late? Yes. Did I wait until the last minute? Yes. Would my paper be better if I had given myself another week or so? Most definetally. But I’m still happy. I started working on this paper a few days ago, I did some readings, I thought about it, I did some more readings, I talked to a few people, and, when I felt I was ready, I started writing. The words flew from my fingers, and in an hour I had three pages.

Often I have the problem where I don’t know where to start, I don’t have the “feel” of a paper, I can’t write it. Other times, I just click with the topic and I can start writing from nothing. In this case, I could have started writing a few days ago, but I liked the topic enough that I wanted to hold off, to roll it around in my head. By this afternoon I had a pretty good idea of what my argument was going to be, by tonight I had enough readings done that I felt I was ready to go, and very soon after I had a lot of my thoughts down on paper.

I don’t think my paper is incredible. I don’t think I deserve any special praise. I know I should have started earlier. But this paper is not bad, it will be turned in on time, it will be rewritten if necessary, and I won’t fail the class.

I’m feeling pretty good. This is what school is supposed to be about.