Let the games begin

Received my first 3 questions for my comprehensive essay yesterday - these are "just" a practice run... and I have a bit more than a week to do them - but given that I have all sorts of other things going on in my life (tenants that don't pay rent, don't give notice, etc. for starters ... and that IS just for starters!) ....AND that I have not managed to yet READ all 55 books on my list never mind find a way to retain what I'm reading...

it's more than enough challenge.

Have I mentioned I love Inspiration software? I know I have .... but anyway ... I got the questions yesterday, late afternoon... and my first response on reading them was OMG I haven't read enough...I can't...I don't know....ACK!!! You know that initial total panic when you're first confronted with exam questions, right? Yeah, that....

After a brief (well, HE might not describe it as brief) whine to hubby "I TOLD her I wasn't ready - why is she pushing me so hard - blah blah blah...." though, I decided to open up Inspiration and plunked the first question into it. And then I started to play.

No brilliant flashes of inspiration, really ... but once I had broken each question down into bubbles and mucked about a bit with structures.... I was able to start plugging some of the authors in where they fit best ... not worrying about who said what when yet ... just stuff like well, Patricia Monture-Angus will fit here... where I need to talk about feminist writers and colonialism; Sangster goes here with class ... oh, and Smith can fit there too...and so on and so on....

I did the same with each of the three questions... didn't get as far with the one re: my criminalization & law section as I did with the others... but did as much as I could without resorting to burying myself in my notes and books and so on ... the plan was to not get bogged down and stressed out - just to PLAY... and then go to bed and hope that things would be more doable this morning.

And indeed, they are...I woke up thinking about ways to categorize different schools of thought about criminalization... AND how to bring in a lot of the theory/older stuff that is on my list even though the question refers to "current debates" (by speaking to how current "schools of thought" are drawing on Foucault et al ....

so ... I'm not ready to sit down and WRITE all 3 essays yet .... but I am a heck of a lot further than I am likely to have been without my very pretty blue and purple and yellow bubbles.... and now that I am finished my first coffee of the day and the puppies have quit harassing me and gone outside to play, I do believe it is time I get back to them ... the bubbles, I mean :)