i woke up around 7 am this morning, having failed once again to stay up and write my paper last second. this latest one was just too much – a 35-page rough draft for my senior thesis. i must admit, i had done little or no research in the past month that we were given to work on the draft, so with less than 12 hours left, i ate a burrito and then passed out on my bed with all the lights on.

i stuffed all my books – about 10 of them – into a barnes&noble bag and walked over to butler around 8am. there were still a good number of people here that early, most likely studying for their midterms. i sat down, opened up my laptop, and fell asleep again, my left arm serving as a pillow.

i woke up to the sound of my phone vibrating against my check in my coat pocket. i had kept my coat on because i was cold. it was an email message (yes, i am cool and get email messages on my phone) from someone i had emailed the night before. an unlikely quick response. it was a nice way to start the day, and i got to think about chang-rae lee’s aloft, one of my favorite books.

there was nothing i could do about the 35 pages. i supposedly had about 16 pages of it written from “section drafts” that we submitted in the past 3 months, but my topic had evolved and my research had shown that these previous papers were useless. i didn’t want to panic, so i didn’t. i sat down, a bit numbed. i checked my facebook to waste time and read a few nytimes articles. i had a film class at 10am so i packed up my stuff and went just in time to sign my name and listen to my professor speak for 30 minutes. i came right back to the library and began writing. i knew i couldn’t write up a full thesis draft, so why not try an outline to at least show i had something in my mind?

and that’s what i did for the next three hours.

in the meantime, i received an email from Columbia College Today (where i’ve worked for the past 3 years), telling me that i was the new class correspondent for the class of 2005. an honor usually bestowed on some important student leader (mik and novi, the 2004 and 2003 correspondents, were both student body presidents), i was given the job because i had been with CCT and was proven to be reliable. it’s nice to know that, having contributed to every issue since november 2002, i will continue to contribute content for the magazine as long as i am correspondent. sweet. it also gives me a reason to come to alumni events from time to time.

i managed to crank out an outline, but it was already 3pm by the time i printed enough copies to give to my classmates. the senior thesis seminar was a 2pm-4pm class, so i had already missed half of it. i decided between writing a cowardly email to my professor with an excuse about being sick or going to class late and explaining how i hadn’t done jack for the past month. the latter scenario prevailed, and i found myself walking towards hamilton with my 4-page outline (versus 35-page paper). when i got to the door, everyone in my class (all five of them) had started walking out the door.

“she let us out early today,” someone told me. snow had been falling hard all morning, so the campus was covered in white. i waited by the stairwell for my professor and when she finally came out the door, i told her i had not written my paper. she was understanding. we went to the carlton (?) lounge in avery hall and i told her about some issues i was having with defining terms and finding new material that greatly affected the course of my thesis. i was pleased that most of the stuff i said was pretty genuine, and she was very nice about it, giving me a two-week extension on the paper (considering my going to Paris for spring break). a huge stroke of luck. damn, i love it when i act on instinct and it pays off.

i came back to my room a new man and checked on my work laptop (a heavy dell latitude that i keep on my desk) to see what was going on at the NFL (and to pad my “remote” work hours). we’re launching the Playbook intranet website on Wednesday (today), and although i won’t be there because of classes, I am excited. furthermore, a week ago i wrote up a “script” for Rich Eisen, former sportscenter anchor and host of NFL Network’s Total Access, to introduce the site in a video that we were going to stream to our employees. ragu, my IT buddy at NFL, sent me the video file via email and I got to see how my writing sounded like when Rich Eisen said it. boy, it was hotness. i think someone at the network added a few phrases (maybe Eisen, himself) to make it funnier, but when he finished with “convenience and efficiency at the click of a mouse,” i had chills down my back knowing i had written those lines. it reminded me of another line i authored, for the speechwriter protagonist in my KSA culture show movie: “I think it’s every writer’s dream to have his work read by someone important.” dream come true, however minor the writing.

the weather is ridiculously cold and i haven’t done much work. i am severely lacking in sleep although i must’ve garnered about 2 hours of naptime in chinese cinema – yellow earth was a beautifully shot and directed movie (like no other communist movie i’ve seen so far), but once i realized the impossibility of the soldier having sex with the girl who lived in the peasant home, i couldn’t stay awake. i bet if they made the same movie today, there would have been nudity at some point, even if it’s in that rough real-life style that hong sang-soo does so well in his films.

suffering the cold here, and i became curious and checked up on the 10-day weather report for paris. not too promising. lots of rain and temperature in the 40s. rain reminds me of paddington bear because he wears that blue jacket and yellow cap as if it’s always raining, but i was reminded that i’m going to PARIS, not that other city across the channel. babar, right?