My Bad Habits
I like to think of myself as a nice guy. I don't fart at the supper table; I don't pick my nose on a date, and I don't go running naked through the the dorm when I get drunk. But in my most honest moments, I know I have many bad habits, so many, in fact, that only a classification paper will do justice to them.
First, I have bad physical habits. For example, I smoke. I know it's bad for me. My lungs probably look like dirty furnace filters, but I don't have enough will power to quit. Every time I start worrying about my health, I get so upset I need a smoke to calm my nerves. But smoking isn't my only bad physical habit. I also eat too much junk food. I eat burgers and fries three or four times a week. Every now and then I think I'll do better. Once I bought a bunch of bananas and some rice cakes to snack on. I figured if I munched on them all evening, my stomach wouldn't get empty and I wouldn't have so many Big Mac attacks. Go figure. Choking down those rice cakes made Big Macs seem better than ever. Maybe eating so much junk food wouldn't be so bad if I exercised, but I don't. The closest I get to exercise is watching Monday Night Football. Well, scratch that. The closest I get to exercise is in my girlfriend's room but I'm sure you don't want to hear about it.
I also have some pretty lousy social habits. My personal hygiene sucks. On weekends, if my girlfriend goes home, I don't take a shower, shave, or brush my teeth until just before she comes back. I figure "what the hell," it's not worth the effort. And since I'm spilling my guts, I might as well admit that I only change my underwear about once a week. (Well, sometimes more depending upon my "exercise" schedule.) To do so more often makes too much laundry. Furthermore, I only go to parties if there is free food and drink. When there is, I go, eat and drink as much as I can, then leave. I don't even go through the motions of being sociable. My girlfriend is great. She tells everybody I'm just shy. Yeah, right.
Finally, I have intellectual habits that are beyond lousy. They are downright scary. I'm a procrastinator. I don't do anything until the last minute. I could, but I don't give a damn. At least I don't give a damn about doing the work, but I do give a damn about my grades. That leads to my second bad intellectual habit, I'm a liar. I don't know how many times I've given a prof a line of bull about missing a class or not getting an assignment done. Last semester, I didn't do an English assignment and told my professor I had done it but lost my disk. He let me do it over. But I still didn't pass so I might as well have not bothered. My worst intellectual bad habit, however, is that I lie to myself. I'm always blaming somebody or something when things go wrong. I blame my teachers, Dean Fried, the nurse, the Registrar, my parents, Bill Clinton, the writers of the U.S. Constitution and God before I blame myself. And the sad truth is, I half way believe those lies. As time goes on, I believe them more and more. Which is disgusting.
Writing this paper has upset me so much that only a smoke, a Big Mac, and a little exercise will get me back into a good humor.
This is a good paper. The student has three mutually exclusive categories (lousy, physical, social and intellectual habits) and he provides detailed examples of all three. We are convinced, I think, that his thesis is valid.
This paper raises some interesting questions about taste. Is something like this appropriate for an English class? Is it OK to say: "My personal hygiene sucks?"
It boils down to issues of audience and voice. Who are you writing to? Will the audience be offended? What kind of voice do you wish to project? Why?
I would never write something like this, but I don't fault this guy for being disgustingly honest. A rule of thumb about writing is not to pick a topic that you aren't willing to write about fully and honestly.
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