Huh? What's that? Oh, it's my Junior Paper. Hello, JP.
"Hello, Christine. I just wanted to say good morning and remind you that I'm supposed to be 25 pages long and that my due date is coming up. Enjoy your breakfast!"
That's not funny, JP. I still have almost three weeks until the first draft is due; now go away and let me drink my coffee in peace. If you were tangible, I'd hit you with a fly swatter.
"But I'm not tangible because you haven't worked on me yet."
Ouch. That was harsh. Unnecessarily so, in fact. But my JP does not like to sugarcoat things, and it sure as heck does not want me to forget it exists. Enjoy my breakfast, indeed.
The problem with my JP, though, is that it doesn't just follow me to breakfast. It's there when I'm hanging out with my roommates, or catching up with friends on facebook.com or even when I'm writing other papers - jealous, JP? I wish I could reassure it, tell it that I promise I will complete it on time and that it should stop bothering me until then.
Unfortunately for me, however, my JP would rather hang over my head. It just ... looms. Not to say that all looming things are bad. The Empire State Building looms, and it certainly doesn't bother me. Fine Hall also looms, which frightens me a little, but more because of my undying fear of math than its height-oriented architectural structure. But the JP seems to loom more and more as time goes on, and it is requiring an increasing amount of my mental energy to stave it off. I have to think of more elaborate excuses now to not work on it because things like "I have to play the online game Text Twist" just aren't cutting it anymore.
"Christine, what are you doing now?"
I'm at track practice, JP! Go away!
"Running in circles isn't very productive."
It's more productive than having my academics run circles around me. Now stop bothering me unless you'd like to join in on the workout.
And therein lies the difficulty of the JP: writing it while still keeping up with the rest of your life. In a way, JPs are like the midterms of your Princeton career. Like during midterm week, you still have to go to class, keep up with the reading and then in your spare time somehow whip out a massive paper. The thesis, on the other hand, is like finals week: Yes, everyone makes a huge deal out of it, and yes, it's worth more of your grade, but you have a long time to work on it, and you don't have to take a full load of classes. Disclaimer: I know that next year, when I'm pulling my 20th all-nighter in a row for my thesis, I will regret saying that. But for now, just let me have my moment.
So when some friends asked me if I would like to see the new James Bond movie this weekend, I cheerfully replied, "Sure! I've got nothing to do on Saturday."
"Ahem!"
"I mean, I could start my politics paper..."
"And..."
"I guess I should write my psych paper, too..."
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
I gulped nervously. "And I have to work on my JP." There. I said it. Now it's out in the open. The JP smiles, or get as close to a smile as one can when one is a yet-to-be-written paper.
As I sit down to start my research, a million things go through my head. You have other, more imminent papers to write! You haven't done your politics reading in two weeks! Quick, go to The New York Times website ... they might have a new article posted! And while you're online, you might as well head to Facebook and see if that friend-of-a-friend is still in a relationship with that guy you don't know. Most important of all: When will you find the time to watch that new episode of "Gossip Girl"?!
But as much as I hate to say it, "Gossip Girl" can wait. So can The New York Times, and even my other papers. The reason that I'm too busy to write my JP is not that I don't have the time, but that I'm not willing to make the time for it. And somewhere down the line that has to change. So I'm taking a stand - JP, here I come. And hey, I'll still figure out a way to fit in the fun things: I'll just need to make some choices. So don't make fun of me if I'm wistfully thinking of "Gossip Girl" on my way to James Bond this weekend - it'll all be worth it in the end.
Right, JP?
"Right."
Christine Brozynski is a politics major from Mendham, N.J. She can be reached at cbrozyns@princeton.edu.
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