I’d originally written this in a comment, but it’s better suited as a new post, methinks.
I’m having difficulties adjusting to the program. After years of persuasive and interpretive writing, making the switch to quantitative (or is it qualitative?) research is a challenge. Writing papers in APA format is also something new to me, and I’m having real problems condensing my thoughts into pithy, 4 page response papers when I am used to writing elaborate 15-25 page research papers. Maybe my writing DOES suck right now. You know what they say about old dogs and new tricks…
Maybe that’s what I need to come to terms with — that I’m no longer an English major, and that I’m in a program with very different standards and expectations; standards that confuse my usual level of strong comprehension and expectations that I’m failing to meet. The thought of having to write exams sends nauseatic shivers down my spine. Exams!? I haven’t written an exam in eons.
I’m questioning whether I made the right choice entering the program (and certainly the archives stream). I’m a bibliophile, not a tekkie*. I fetishize antiques. One of my dreams is to have an attic filled with cobwebs and moths and mystery. I romanticize the literary tradition, from cave paintings to papyrus to ink to script to print to typewriter. Yea, I’m weird like that.
“We are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known”
The smell of old books; the prickly side of vellum; the idea of preservation; gathering pieces from a fragmented and partially — but never entirely — destroyed past we all once belonged to (and have so readily discarded). These are the things that do it for me and yet I find myself in a library without literature.
I’m meeting with the Assistant Dean tomorrow to discuss where my head it at, and options for 2008-2009.
————————–
*this is not to say I am a newcomer to the online experience, or that I don’t run an e-commerce website, or that I didn’t user ICQ and MIrc over a 14.4 modem back in the day, or play Everquest 18/hrs a day for 2 years of my life with a GeForce4.. 
As a fellow English major, I can relate to your difficulty interpreting the writing expectations in the program. APA is strange to me and I don’t really know how to write a 4 page paper. That said, I’m enjoying the work for the reason that it is much different than my past course work.
Oh yeah, I’m dreading the exam.
Just remember that this is a new program for everyone. I hope your meeting with the Assistant Dean gives you a better perspective. Good luck – I’m sure things will get better once we’ve settled in.
Yeah, and it’s all a matter of learning how to play “the (new) game”.
Right now, I just want to finish the rest of my assignments and ignore the grades. I think that’s the plan from here on out