In Washington, peace campaigner Cindy Sheehan spent Mothers Day in an anti-war vigil outside the White House along with actress Susan Sarandon, other military mothers and Iraq war veterans. There were many worthy headlines today, too many. So Mike and I decided we'd grab Iraq via C.
I.'s snapshot and try to focus on some other headlines. But we both agreed that the demonstration this weekend was too important (and too little noted by the mainstream media) for us to not grab it and make it our top headline.
In fact, I'd left space (that I'll take out now) to write a paragraph or two before the item but I really want anyone coming to this site to see the headline above first. I don't know how Mike does it, but once we decide on our headlines for the day, I copy and paste mine in and then write around them which is a trick I stole from C.I.
when I saw it used over Thanksgiving. To make up for jumping straight into the news with no attempt to ease in, I'll note that's also the way C.I.
did papers in college. Grab the research, assemble the points you want to make, plug them in and then write around it. I never could get behind that approach.
It just seemed too much for a paper. It wasn't really an outline, it was more of a spine, and from that C.I.
would pick spots and write around them. This prevented the "I don't know what to write" or "I don't know how I'm going to write this" panic. There was never any of the staring at the blank paper that I did.
It was always grab a section and write on it. After the paragraphs were done around the research points, it was time to write the introduction and conclusion and then to work on transitions between paragraphs. It worked and I could probably do it today because I rarely do anything in long hand anymore.
There was a paper C.I. did that had 13 pages of works cited, the paper itself was probably seventy pages long and you had to step around it in the living room because the index cards were on blank pages and then you had the pages with writing on them.
But the paper was finished within two days. It wasn't due until the end of the term. Remembering all the headaches I had over papers, remembering right now, I should have tried using that method.
I remember way too many nights, early mornings, where I would be so frustrated because I was stuck on a point and my paper was due shortly. Rebecca would wait until the very last minute to start. I never did that, but I may as well have the way I'd get stuck on a point and end up going out for coffee at three in the morning in the hopes that getting out and doing something different would remove the block I'd stopped at.
That's probably why Rebecca and Jim enjoy the editions at so much. They both love that "Am I going to finish! Am I going to pull it off!
" burst off enthusiasm. I think those editions are helpful for one reason alone, it exposes everyone to different styles of writing because it is a group effort. The way I did papers and essays was the way we were instructed which was start with the first paragraph and move on to the next.
There are other ways and I think my stress levels in college would have been much lower if I'd known of other methods and tried them. ("But you knew of C.I.
's?" Not until it got to be the advanced course work and the papers were longer. would always write during the time that most people sleep.
It wasn't until the papers got really long and the living room floor would be needed to assemble them that I even realized there was another way of writing a paper.) I really think courses like that would be helpful. Many universities offer a freshman course which is basically "This is your university.
" They sometimes give it a "PSYCH" preface but it's just getting familiar with the university. Some that don't offer it as a course, schedule an orientation. But I really do think that teaching/sharing that there is not just one way to do a paper (or anything) would benefit a student body.
In terms of my practice, I'll occasionally get a patient who really just needs some validation or confirmation that something they're doing is okay because they've been led to believe (all of their lives) that you do ___ this way and only this way. I know I studied better because I got to see Rebecca, C.I.
and other friends ways of studying. Before a test, Rebecca would gather all of her notes and make up a list of questions from them based upon the main themes from lectures. Her method really turned her into a teacher teaching herself.
I would review the notes and then review the notes I'd made on the readings and I would start that a week before the test so that I'd be able to review them several times. does this whole immersion thing -- I say "does" because that's still C.I.
's way when it comes to an issue or cause or work or whatever. (It's why Betty always wants to read her latest chapter to C.I.
before she posts it -- Betty goes deep into her characters and for a sounding board, C.I.'s always her first choice -- their process is very similar.
) It's termed, by some, "overstudying." There was a professor I had, that C.I.
didn't, who used to say that those who overstudied were wasting their time and I wonder how many people believed that? (I hope no one in the class that also had to immerse themselves.) For someone to reach the level where they're comfortable with the material isn't "wrong.
" I'll add that there was another trick C.I. had for course that weren't interesting (the subject matter wasn't interesting to C.
I.) which was to just memorize. In Washington, peace campaigner Cindy Sheehan spent Mothers Day in an anti-war vigil outside the White House along with actress Susan Sarandon, other military mothers and Iraq war veterans.
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