How to Write a Research Paper, Revised

1. Make coffee.
2. Do dishes.
3. Berate yourself for going back to college.
4. Eat a pint of ice cream.
5. Take experimental selfies.
6. Eat another pint of ice cream.
7. Wonder how many years of your life you’re shaving off by ingesting so much sugar.
8. Waste a lot of time on Netflix.
9. Waste a lot of time on YouTube.
10. Briefly ponder what you’re going to tell you colleague in the morning (the one who requested that he could read your research paper when you’re done).
11. Job hunt, not because you’re dissatisfied with/wanting to leave your current position, but because the instant gratification monkey demands that you mine every corner of the Internet possible, so long as it has nothing to do with your paper.
12. Stumble across a job that actually is perfect for you, but that you’re not qualified for. Because when they say “1+ year of experience in related field” (field related to pastoral care, btw), I don’t think showing up for 1+ year of Sunday mornings at your old church’s preschool to stick plastic silverware into the plastic toaster in the play kitchen* counts as a year of related experience, in this case.
13. Call it a night, despite your freakishly close proximity to the deadline, set your alarm clock for an ungodly hour.
14. Go to work.
15. Throw together something half-assed.

* What really kept me coming back is that those three-year-olds were the only motherfuckers I could find that would play freeze tag with me. And the coloring book pages were off the CHAIN.