The tension is mounting

I still haven't made any real progress in writing my paper and the rough draft is due for peer-review next Wednesday. So far I have only managed to write four pages of barely acceptable quality and I still have about fifteen pages to go. I have no doubt that the draft will be done in time but the quality of it remains iffy and questionable.

I do feel some pressure from the expectation to produce a high-quality research paper and the pressure is bearing down ever so heavily on me with each passing day. For the most part, the pressure to produce a stellar paper indirectly comes from the professors that I talked to and sought advices from. I have consulted several professors in regards to my research and now they are waiting in anticipation to read the finished product. Dr. Hansen, whose History of SE Asian class I'm occasionally sitting in now, even volunteered to write a personalized note of recommendation on my behalf to the director of the SE Asian Center at Madison (a good friend of her) though she is not obligated to--I didn't even register for her class. I have somewhat proven myself to be able to talk the talk, but the main overarching question is whether I can walk the walk. This paper would be a testament of my ability to walk the walk, so to speak. It will be a clear proof of my ability to streamline my thoughts and ideas into a coherent and cogent written analysis.

My problem right now is the doubts about the overall direction of my paper. I somehow cannot get my mind wrap entirely around my research question and hypothesis; thus, any efforts to put my ideas and thoughts into words on the computer screen seem to be an exercise in futility. There were moments when I felt that I bit more than I can chew, and that I should have picked a different--and easily framed-- research question, instead of the inherent subjectivity of my current project. Was it a mistake on my part to let my emotion and personal quest dictate the nature of my research, as opposed to finding a more concrete topic with preponderance of empirical sources? I admit that I'm not doing this research for the sake of doing research; I have a much larger agenda of self-introspection and the search for the possibility of a zeitgeist transformation in the SE Asian region.

Anyway, maybe it's best if I stop typing this post and start writing the paper. By the way, I still have another ten-page and five-page papers to write for my Political Theory and European Integration classes, respectively, and they are all due in about a week-and-a-half.

Can someone please tell me again why did I decide to go back to school, instead of working full-time? I just cannot wait until this semester is over and blow off some steam in Malaysia this summer.