I had that bout of seasonal depression, and two classes that were very hard for me. I mean, to the best of my knowledge (I just turned in my final papers for both classes and they have not been graded yet) I'm getting an A- in Environmental Science and a B in Research Writing; the grades were not the problem. It was the topics.
Environmental Science was pretty interesting, but the final project was to choose an area of environmental impact (I chose Water Resources in the Puget Sound Basin) and write a long paper about it, citing sources, etc. No real problem, except that it's a long paper for me (approximately 2000 words). I have no problem whatsoever rattling off fiction at 2000 words, but a research paper on how important water-based tourism is around here is pretty nerve-wracking for me.
Research Writing, surprisingly, was actually worse. I was surprised because, well... I'm a bit of a grammar nazi and you'd think that sort of class would be easier... but it wasn't. I think the reasons for this were many-fold, but primarily that I'm used to writing either fiction or blog posts, which are considerably more casual than a research paper. Secondly, when I have written research papers in the past, I've used a different style guide than that the University of Phoenix uses. Thirdly, the topic I chose for my paper was "Should homosexual couples be allowed to adopt?" (I'm for it). Some of the counter-arguments were heartbreaking and literally made me sick to read.
Anyway, I'm done now, all that's left is the Daily Questions for today and tomorrow, and the post-class reviews.
And Monday I start again, but it's a lot less intense at the beginning of a session. In springtime.
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