Can't organize thoughts like a normal person!

Gah. I've gotten tripped up by the very first paragraph of this damn paper. Writing introductions is always bloody difficult because you have to make so many sweeping generalizations that sound platitudinal and don't really sit well the moment you stop to think about them--but I don't seem to be able to do what some people do and start in the middle, leaving the introduction for last. It seems I need more structure to my writing than that--if I start in the middle, then I don't know where I'm going and where I'm supposed to be coming from, and I feel lost. Once again, the fact that I see everything as a continuous Mass of Stuff and have trouble looking at individual bits separately is turning out to be a serious obstacle.

Feh, I say.

Navigator's error

vvvexation (having just emerged from bedroom in pursuit of history notes and then paused to contribute to her roommate's phone conversation): By the way, did you say something about "vegetarian vampire bat guano" a couple of minutes ago?
saizai: Yes, I did.
V: Jeez, I thought that couldn't possibly have been it.
Sai: What, don't you know me better than that by now?
V: I just figured I must've misheard.
Sai: You underestimate my capacity for silliness.
V: You underestimate my capacity for mishearing.

Seriously, I think my creative mishearings are an offshoot of my capacity for silliness. It's not as though I didn't believe he would say something like that, but I figured any particular silly thing I thought I heard him say could just as easily be a figment of my twisted imagination as his.