(NOTE: The following is a parody of Anne Boleyn’s last speech in Maxwell Anderson’s play Anne of The Thousand Days, which I learned for Acting I. It is not intended to demean Maxwell Anderson, who is an excellent playwright, nor is this piece intended to have any bearing on specific students, teachers, or assignments. Any similarity of this work to people or events in real life should be attributed to the fact that this is college and it happens, on occasion, to the best of us).

If I could but sleep now...
But I should not sleep yet,
not quite.
I’ve been too lazy. A few words and some study...
How many words, I wonder, since the first time I typed the introduction, to the last word I’ve just written on the second page of the six I ought to have-
the six I ought to have by tomorrow because the paper is 25% of my grade?
Well, I can do a spell-check.
I have a little time. Class isn’t for another ten hours
and I need a short respite.
My professor cannot mind.
He grades hard and pushes us-
and lectures as few can, and tends to test us hard,
but when he comes around to correcting all our papers
there are quite a few of us, and I have learned to fake it well-
for I write well-
and I might write a bit below my means for a page or two
and still do well.
“My teacher,” I think, “My teacher would not fail me.”
I am a good student, most days;
He’ll understand, just this once, and be lenient, perhaps.
On the paper. On the test.
Why must we have a test? Might he be patient? Darn classes...
Teachers, those folks! I swear they try to kill me?
I know it’s all my fault.
I know I got kinda busy,
and it may be that I procrastinated.
I did procrastinate. I’m all to familiar with the woes of procrastination,
and it was my fault, for I partied, played games, and read a novel,
instead of studying for my three tests and writing this paper-
only I should know better by now. And all my tests
are ones I can’t just write nonsense for... I wish they were...
No, I can study. Can’t I? I should...
Can I do it, I wonder?
I know I’ve made my way through scrapes like this before.
So- perhaps I could pass.
Perhaps I will pass.
If I started to type again, how many words
would I have left,
Beginning on the second page...
From the paragraph of worthless drivel,
to the last sentence of a trumped-up conclusion,
hmm,
perhaps I should calculate this,
I who have a built-in graphing calculator on my computer and often procrastinate.
I could quote a few paragraphs from a source-
these words; and these; and these, too.
I must think up a few more ideas-
they don’t really need to make sense-
to go here, and here. In words,
It comes to seven hundred words,
out of a thousand or so.
Strangely, just seven hundred.
But of that thousand-
ten-
that might really make sense. Only ten
and those will all be in the header: my name, and his, the course name, and a title.
When I can no longer think of words-
My subconscious will take over,
except for those words. And the rest of the paper-
690 unmeditated words- born through a subconscious growth-
will make no sense. When anyone tries to understand.
Then my teacher will look at the pages and say,
“This paper is strange like the rest.
I thought it might be this way.
It reeks of procrastination.”
And he will mark it up.
Have I no ambition tonight?
I wrote my papers in advance in High School!
Write it now, and fudge it, and it won’t matter-
what happens- or what I say! I must write it.
It’s as my mother told me:
You write when you must.
You can’t always force it. And she, dear sweet mother,
I wish I’d listened
I’d try again if she called me up
and nagged once more.
Even when dawn breaks...
...I’ll still sit here wondering whether I’ll fail.
Whether the subconscious growth will rot. Or feed my inspiration,
or that of my competitors.
My words could touch someone.
I might inspire them to write again.
Someone told me another story
of the all nighter she and a friend pulled before their Biology final
drinking Mountain Dew and giggling at the reproduction pages
where the book decribed human reproduction in detail-
and closing the book, going to bed.
To investigate techniques, perhaps.
Even so, they were up all night. But I think they passed.
And my roommate, who passed while sick.
And my RA.
And the thousands of other college students.
They procrastinate still. And they can’t always fail.
-That was my worry! I remember-
poor little me
staying up late with fifteen library books
and hunting among the thin and many pages
of excruciating analysis, till I found a nice quote,
and typing it on the screen,
holding the book with one hand, making typos with the other,
my paper full of spelling I don’t know how to fix.
Then I must run a spell-check on the whole document, when it’s through
and click on spellings that seem possible, playing it by feel,
hoping, almost praying, wondering if I should buy a dictionary.
“What is this word?” my teacher might ask.
“My own,” I’d say sweetly. “James Joyce was allowed
to use his own words.”
And he might let it pass, perplexed...
Would he flunk me for my poor spelling?
No. Spelling isn’t everything, you know.
I’ve talked in class. He’s seen my tests.
He wouldn’t be so cruel. I’ll lose a few points. Ten. A letter grade.
But if I were to earn a B, I doubt I’d get much sympathy.
Perhaps I’d earn some jealousy. I could almost keep my GPA up,
if I’d just study for one of the other tests that looms ahead
study- or write this paper.
But I might pass,
And I’d have nothing to complain about for that;
I’d deserve it.
A friend of mine always laughs on test days.
She’ll speak to the students who worry and fret, all night and day-
“Friend,” she’ll say, “you’ll help me by looking worried,
you make me think I’m smart every time I write an answer.”
I must think of something else when I reach my test.
To get my mind off it- when the crunch comes.
Could I do it? Could I leave my books here-
and laugh and pray? Till the test starts?
Laughing might be easier. It doesn’t hurt. It diverts my mind.
My mind. That’s the tale of my mind.
I wonder what my parents will say
if they hear I’m about to fail.