If anybody had told me I would write a 1,650-word paper to analyse five measly paragraphs of a newspaper article, I would've thought they were crazy. You've gotta remember that in newspaper reports, every paragraph consists of only one or two sentences. 1,650 words to explain, what, 10 sentences at the most?

Yeah, I did it. I have no idea how I did it, but I did it. Welcome to academia, baby.

Now I know why people accuse academicians of sitting in ivory towers. Hello? 1,650 words based on 10 sentences? I sat down and picked that unfortunate newspaper article apart until there was nothing left of it. I analysed it to within an inch of its life and read all kinds of things into it until I wasn't even sure myself whether I was hallucinating and making stuff up, or whether they were really there. Gives new meaning to the phrase "reading between the lines".

I've never had a problem meeting a word limit for an essay, but even I didn't realise the extent of my... err... "powers" until I wrote this paper. Back in high school, I didn't worry about meeting the word limit because I always wrote more than enough. Waaaaay more. In fact, I never even bothered to figure out how much more. I flagrantly disregarded the word limit because I just knew my essays were so much fun to read that the examiner wouldn't mind. It's called being young, naïve, and confident in your own abilities. Well, maybe over-confident.

Hmmm. I was about to say that I haven't written an essay ever since I graduated in 2000, when I realised that's not true coz I was a journalist for four years up to Oct 2005. Maybe that didn't register in my subconscious coz I always typed out my feature stories and news reports, compared to writing essays in longhand. Or maybe the excitement of pursuing what I thought was my "dream job" eclipsed the hard work involved and made the horror of assignments and exams stand out in stark relief. Or maybe it was coz my boss always gave me a free hand where article length was concerned, so I never needed to worry about exceeding or meeting a word limit.

I vividly remember being given my very first assignment and turning to my boss for guidance.

"When do you want it?"

"As soon as possible."

"How long do you want it?"

"Just give it whatever it's worth."

I was fresh out of law school, had no journalism training or experience, and was completely lost. So I did what I do best: I followed my instincts and wrote.

In the same way, I followed my instincts and wrote my linguistics assignment. And ended up with 1,650 words. Can you say "long-winded"?

I approached the newspaper this morning with some trepidation. Ever since Ee-Tan had told me that the article would be out today, I'd been working myself up into a froth of anxiety. I was sure I had given completely banal answers to all her questions. Why, oh why, couldn't I have been witter? Or come up with more original replies?

But when I read the article, I was amazed! Ee-Tan had taken all the various bits of info I had given to her, put them together, re-organised them, made them make sense, and written an article that 'flowed' beautifully. She even made me sound intelligent and articulate in the process. Suddenly I remembered something an interviewee once said to me: "Wow! You managed to write something like this out of all the random stuff I threw at you!"

I'd always taken it for granted -- the ability to produce a readable piece out of all the information in my hands. It never occurred to me that I was doing anything special. But this being the first time I've sat on the other side of the fence, I could finally see the whole process in reverse, as it were.

Now I'm left to marvel at Ee-Tan's skill. What an amazing thing it is to be a writer. To be able to write, and write well. To see connections where others don't, to weave bare facts into fascinating stories, to see through the jumble of words and hone in on the one element which will make the story memorable. It's a gift... and I am humbled.

 
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Have you ever tried to write something without being able to see what you were writing?

My computer flipped me the finger and flaunted the Blue Screen of Death in my face last week, but the flame of rebellion was instantly quenched by Jeyadev, who was gentle but stern and wouldn't let that recalcitrant machine get away with anything.

But last night it decided it had been toeing the line for long enough -- FOUR WHOLE DAYS! -- and began to thumb its nose at me again. I was on MSN Messenger and I could see the messages sent by my friend Jason, but when I tried to type a reply, the box remained a pure unsullied white, no trace of black lettering tripping out over it. The cursor moved, but it was as if I were writing with invisible ink.

I highlighted that portion of the text, copied it, and pasted it into Notepad... viola! The words appeared! So I knew I really was writing something. I did wonder, you know. Only a crazy person continues typing on a keyboard when the monitor displays nothing.

I chatted with Jason for awhile in this manner, with me typing replies that I couldn't see and trusting that my message was getting through. It's very different from trying to write in a dark room, because then you can't even see the paper in front of you. This was more surreal... like you've run out of ink but are still obstinately moving your pen over the paper. And there's no trace that you actually wrote anything. You can't refer to previous messages to see the history of what was said. Everything is in your head (hey, that rhymes!).

Luckily I could still see Jason's replies, so it wasn't all in my head. I think there's probably a story in here somewhere...

I thought lawyers and judges were bad enough, but linguists are worse.

Interdiscursivity involves relations between discursive formations or, more loosely, relations between different types of discourse. It is a matter of how a discourse type is constituted through a combination of elements of orders of discourse.

Did that sound like English to you? No? My point exactly.

You know what is worse? Once I manage to figure out what these people are trying to say, I'll probably end up going over to the dark side and writing like that, myself. Assimilation is imminent; resistance is futile.