My roommate is having me cut her hair

I feel that blog my blog post should at least sorta relate to the title, but, well, that is all I have to say on the matter. Wish me luck.

I haven't blogged in three days and my mother emailed to see if I am alive...

What does this say about me?

Do not fear, friends do not fear. True to myself, I have excuses. Papers, readings, chess tournaments, and, most prominently, there are just one too many delightful things in the Holy Land to distract me.

And most honestly? Egypt was just TOO cool, and I am fully aware that no blog post can reach that level of awesome.

Also, this paper I have to do? It is basically a horror story in the making. Quite possibly my first college paper that I will not ace. Which is really going to be a big issue for me.

Which I have a hard time admitting, because of a certain breed of people.

We all know those people. The ones who set far too many academic goals, all of which seem unrealistically unattainable.

-Maintain a 4.0
-Have 100% attendance and participation in all classes
-Take 18 credits each semester
-Spend two hours outside of class for every hour in class
-Create and maintain personal relationships with each professor
-Bring every paper to the writing lab and seek help from the TA for each assignment
-Quiz myself weekly on the material from previous semesters so as not to forget

And yet, somehow, they manage to meet every. single. one.

I am not one of those people. I have never been one of those people. I would say that I will never be one of those people, but I like to keep my options open and my future looking bright.

My list of goals? Something like this:

-Don't forget to go to class
-Take the tests before the late days
-Don't have more doodles in my notebook than actual notes
-Don't fail

So far it's been working pretty well for me, though I must admit I have found myself coughing up five bucks on more late days than not. Ah well, I guess that is why it is called a goal.

I do, however, have one goal that really actually means something to me: Never get anything lower than an A on a college paper.

I hesitate to share this with you, because the last time I let that goal out of the bag I was met with a sarcastic "Um, yeah, that's a good idea."

And so I had to ask myself, am I a bad student? Is it so horrible that I am ok with seeing a B or two on my report card? Should I hide from the world the fact that papers is the only area where I would actually be down on myself for not receiving top marks?

My answer is that it is all in the eye of the beholder, so I shall let you take it as you will.

But, I'll be honest. I love to write. And I give all credit to my amazing writing teacher of 5 years. She taught me everything I know about narratives, descriptions, expository, book reports, poetry, persuasive, and all the nitty-gritty details that really make the difference in the end.

Words are hard for me, and I can rarely say what I really want. But give me some paper and a pen and I'll be pouring out my mind in no time.

So this seven page research paper with personal reflections on six different aspects of Islam should not be a problem, right?

Right. It should not. Unfortunately, however, the universe rarely does what I think it should.

Who made that ok?

And so, the point of me sharing my paper-related-bitterness is that I am quite sure I will not be able to successfully blog about Egypt when I cannot even write one measly descent research paper.

So until I am back to myself, the only Egypt info you get is that I started getting my summer tan. Epic success.