The Only Thing We Have to Fear is a Cranky Professor and a Red Pen

Fear, needless to say, is a very powerful emotion. Fear has the ability to rob us of our reason, our peace of mind, and even our sanity should it steal too close. I would think that nearly every human being of a certain age, (say, old enough to go to the dentist), has experienced this potent emotion at one point or another, and I would venture to guess that the feeling was not overly pleasant.
I myself am no stranger to fear, especially now as I begin a new chapter of my life in an unfamiliar environment, far away from those closest to me. With the school year just beginning, my fears have become academic in nature; I'm scared of everything from having an insanely large workload to writing-gulp-papers. Writing for fun or to get something off your chest that would be rude to say aloud is all well and good, but writing that is graded just plain freaks me out.
For me, writing requires some sort of emotional connection, some sort of interest or passion in the subject that will allow me to translate my emotion to paper. If that connection is absent, or clouded by anxiety, the paper will reflect it. And although I wish every single paper would entail researching some phenomenally interesting subject, most often they will not. Since I cannot always write about what interests me, I must find another incentive for writing papers on subjects I find a bit more dull, and must conquer my fear of my paper being so covered in red ink that it should be saying, "Et tu, Brute?". At some point in our lives, just as we inevitably experience fear, we must also deal with things we dislike. I think in conquering our fears, and learning to adequately deal with things we dislike, we grow. It's a painful growth, and one we may not always appreciate immediately, but one we may come to be grateful for in later years. After all, isn't painful, caffeine-fueled growth what college is all about?