Wearing My Grandma's Party Dress

Reading the two previous posts makes me truly appreciate my civil status. When you're in a relationship and never have to think about the art of dating, you tend to forget the downsides of being single. So thank you guys for making me see my relationship in a new light. It's been refreshing!

As interesting as this “Sex&the City”- way of blogging might be, I think it is time for a new topic. While other people exert themselves figuring out the secrets of dating, I have been working my fingers to the bone trying to put together a decent piece of work for last semester's term paper. Why is it that when I have some four months to write a paper, I never get started for real until the deadline is so close I can literally smell it? Is it at all possible for me to get a paper done without its due date breathing down my neck?

As a language major it hurts me to admit that writing academic papers isn't one of my strong sides. Yes I do enjoy writing, and yes they do teach academic writing at the igloo university of Oslo, still I must say I do not feel quite confident about the whole thing. What is considered common knowledge? When is footnoting necessary? Is it possible to over-footnote a paper? What is worse, over-footnoting or under-footnoting? Is footnoting even a word? If not, can I take credit for it and call it my own? Or will I be accused of plagiarism? All these questions are keeping me from freely composing a single sentence. And then, of course, there is the language barrier.

As you know by now, I am scared witless at the mere thought of having to express myself in English writing. As weird as this may sound, coming from a language major and all; foreign languages make me feel downright awkward. I loathe situations where I come across expressions like “a knockoff” and, confusing it with “knockout”, take it to mean something positive. It is amazing how this keeps happening to me still, after 17 years of learning English. I can't even get the spoken jargon right, so just imagine my encounter with academic English.

When writing academic English, I get the same feeling I used to get when I was 5 and got dressed up wearing my grandma's party dress. It kinda makes me feel grown up, it's sort of exciting, still something about it just doesn't fit.

In my despair I emailed my professor and asked him: how do I know when something is considered common knowledge? He emailed me back and said: good question, and as ever with good questions, what is the answer?

- The... Norwegian -