I have figured out why writing a paragraph about a topic I like which would probably take someone else about 1 hour to complete, takes me about 3.

It's because I dream and get distracted while attempting to complete the task at hand. I see and I smile and I listen and I think as I devour the stuff that pop up on my computer screen when my head is lost to my fingers. I live in possibilities and beauty and all things fantasy and faerie-like. I don't have a prolonged attention span. I hate being confined to what I HAVE to do, rather than what I WANT to do. I don't roll like that, yo.

Case in point: I LOVE studying international politics. I love rocking up to class and listening to intelligent stuff and figuring out the theories and observing the sort-of debate that takes place in tutes. I LOVE reading about Somalia and understanding the nuances that led to what's happening there at this point in time.

What I do NOT like, on the other hand, is this agenda of researching and gathering specific points to write a specific essay which I probably wouldn't remember a year from now to pander to someone else's specific academic demands. I do not like being forced (by no one but myself really) to remember stupid macroeconomics graphs and the causal effects of this and that and everything in between. I do not like conducting research from all these books strewn across my floor, looking for a specific point in 10 500-page books which will fit into the theoretical window that I'm expected to tackle the topic from.

I work best in my head, at my pace, when I want to, wherever I want to.

It's just a pity that this world keeps spinning madly on whether I choose to keep up or not. I experience bouts of sudden inspiration when I go heck, screw all these responsibilities and expectations and need-to-accomplish's I'm just going to enjoy the ride. And then reality kicks in and I realize if I merely dance and paint and sing and play music and read all the time, I will stay true to my heart and I will probably be the happiest girl on earth. But I'd probably also end up in poverty with no goverment that cares about me enough to make out fortnightly Centrelink payments to a sufficient extent that I can chuck a surfboard on my littlemisssunshine van and drive up the coast and surf all day long.

So it's the suffering now for a possible future when I'll have enough money to occasionally follow my heart, or a screw the world attitude now for a possible future of abject poverty which would mean no heart-following. Because who are we kidding? Even in this uncertain doomsday economic climate, and as much as I scrunch my nose up at the Asian notion of 'study hard for a better life' philosophy, money is still what makes the world go round isn't it?

So, get back to your Somalia essay NOW. You don't really want to fail the subject do you? pfft.