"What a predicament!"

So, I've been shot down (not again, just recapping), but I'm still still with the liking of Maria. She's like the nicest person I've ever met, and she's just cool to talk to. I went in an hour or two early today to talk with my CS teacher, who btw is a complete wank, and afterwards I went into the lab for 10-15 minutes and talked to her for a bit. The problem I seem to have with her, and most girls in general I think, is that I never know what to talk about. Girls are a completely different species who can easily be offended by many things that come out of my word hole. So I get nervous, and probabyl a bit more with her. So, I don't know what to say, but I want to talk to her, so I just try and think up things, half the time feeling like a fool. She's not one to initiate conversation until I get up to leave, which I dunno is good or not, but it's something. So basically, it's say stupid or pointless things to her to get her to talk back, or it's seem less stupid, but not get to know her any better. Yay me. I feel some sort of pyric victory coming on here...

Damn it, this is going to be hard.

So I have a 5 page paper due friday about any author of my choosing, of any book of my choosing, although it should preferably be a book of short stories. It should come as no surprise that I've picked Orson Scott Card as the author. I picked up this book of stories that I've read before. It's a good 650+ pages, and is arranged in various topics (the first being tales of dread, but that's neither here nor ther).

The problem I'm facing is that this paper is to be on what I've learned as a writer from reading this. Now, this raises two very big problems for me, the first being his writing. By this, I mean that this guy is so good, I simply cannot read more than a few lines before being drawn in. It would take a computer to read this writing analytically. Second, I have a hard time consciously knowing what I've learned from writing. In other words, most of what I learn and do in writing is all done on the subconscious level. I am not a too terribly bad writer, with a decent vocabulary, and all this I have gotten from reading lots and lots over time. My writing style developed by itself, and I really don't, and can't, consciously know what I'm doing. I just learn and write. I can't go, 'okay, this is a hanging participle, and this line needs a subject verb agreement, and blah blah blahblahblah.' I just do it. And to sit down and say how I do it, when I don't even know how I do it, well that just sucks.