A second of September.

The plan of 'no updates until October' has, evidently, been drop-kicked out of the window. Those wide, spacious windows situated right behind me. But it's only natural: one reads something interesting and his brain takes the information, considers it, considers it again from a few different angles, twists a few corners and winds up with something that might come under the same semantic field and bear a slight resemblance as to content but the important parts - the tone, pace, and most essentially the conclusion - are different enough to make both pieces of writing worth consideration.

Shona deposited something rather encouraging today, in her biweekly update; the Thursday one I always read much too quickly given it has to last me five days (including the weekend, where I often sit cycling hopelessly through my bookmarks looking for something new to distract me from Microsoft Word). "Corniest post ever written" it may be, though I would change that to 'corniest post written yet'. Knowing American teenagers means knowing that there is no well of sap left unbored, especially during a three-year college education. The reason it struck a chord is I had much the same experience, though I'm not here to whine about it: I got the worst mark in my class on my first written assignment (of four) and unfortunately did not plan my assessed lesson to anywhere near the degree expected, therefore resulting in an uncomfortable lesson which I managed to keep hold of - barely - though I suspect the fact that the theme we were working on was 'comedy' helped. So did youtube. I will never again say anything against the Dead Parrot Sketch.

(While I didn't have a year-long project thrown out with the trash, in what must have been a feeling right up there with having your heart scoured with a brillo pad, my recent laptop wiping destroyed possibly the best material I had ever written, so I can empathise to some extent.)

So, my day was disappointing. But then, that is the key word: disappointment. Life throws nails under the wheels of your proverbial car with an almost gleeful frequency, but I don't find it the way we cope with such troubles important so much as how we think of them. Anyone can deal with an issue - you simply deal with the issue - but it takes someone with more-than-common willpower to avoid letting it go to their heads. The key point of any problem, any discomfort, is not to let disappointment become despondency, which is a shame considering that that is what your body wants to happen. Bodies, by nature, are lazy things: if you do something bad the first time, your body's natural reaction is to question one, why you did it in the first place, and two, why on earth you would ever want to do it again. Which is problematic when a resubmittion is required, preferably by the next day.

And that is the thing. Becoming despondent drowns you; it aids nobody, especially not yourself. It leads to self-pity, resentment and loneliness. (It may possible have a positive effect on the quantity of blog posts but intevitably drags their quality down, leaving said blog in a worse state overall.) It begets further despondency, because no matter what state you were immediately after the original upset, your best chance of pulling things together was then. Ff you didn't act then, the hole you have to dig yourself out of grows ever bigger. And your despondency prevents you from climbing out of it. Sometimes something trivial which is not addressed and vaulted can have effects lasting years; I've seen it, though I've no sympathy for the people involved. And I apologise, but this is a blanket judgment: if you let despondency take over your system, it is your fault. So don't.

I shall now redo my assignment and pass it. I shall also start putting together my next lesson plan, for next week. I shall have them done, and therefore be happy. It's not complicated.

ETA - I have just stumbled upon this glorious opinion: "I always operate under the assumption that I'm wrong about virtually everything." That's got to something to consider, surely. It'll certainly stop you from opening your mouth and firmly planting your foot in it even before you've addressed your audience, much less during.

The female cop-out. The male requres less effort.