Morals and ethics and carnal forbearance.

I'm a writer. I write. It's my thing that I do and do well and would love, love, love dearly and deeply and truly to be paid for the privilege.

Today, one such opportunity dropped into my lap, and gods help me, I turned it down. Eric, a blowhard from my Literary Criticism class wanted me to write a six-page essay on the subject of antisemitism and Chaucer. A research paper, for which all the research had been done, a thesis written, and a conclusion created; all I'd need to do is assemble the beast tonight, a task which would take a few hours at most. Tempting, yes? Some easy work, and all I'd have to do is sacrifice a chunk of my moral fiber and allow plagiarism, the dirtiest dirty word in English, to reign.

Did I mention the two hundred dollars? Yeah, that's a little bit of context which changes the equation a whole hell of a lot. That is more money than I would deserve for such a minor task; certainly enough money to let me throw my own personal, extremely stylish graduation party. And I would be writing... for money.

And throwing my college career into an unnecessary amount of risk. Tempting expulsion the week before graduation. Handing an essay that reads like I wrote it to someone who's read my essays more than once. Supporting someone who wants the reward without doing the work. Bad. Wrong. Immoral. Unethical. A bad idea.

Two hundred dollars. Six pages. That's four hours of typing, TOPS.

It kills me. It just kills me.