Staying in bed all day is not an effective way to deal with stress

I don’t think I could ever be a druggie. It seems like people often use drugs (or alcohol) as an escape from their problems. While I do see the benefits of occasionally drowning my sorrows with some rum, drugs have too many crazy side-effects. I prefer to simply fall asleep and let my brain create an alternate reality, one where my only problem is how to kill all these bad guys with my sweet spy skillz. I don’t have to worry about getting a job, paying my rent, cooking my meals, dealing with boys or finding time for friends.

Sleep is the best escape. Ever.

When I wake up, my bed becomes this special sacred place where my problems can’t touch me. I mean, I definitely DO think about them, but in a detached kind of way. Hmm, I should probably deal with x issue. Later.

As soon as my toes touch the floor, though, “x issue” becomes “X ISSUE” – and I freak out. Wow, I need to deal with this *now*!

Obviously, this reaction does not drive me to leap out of bed in the morning. Which is why I spent far too long yesterday curled up with my down comforter. Sadly, like any method of procrastination, hiding from my problems does not actually solve them. Eventually, my toes will touch the floor and I’ll have to accept that I need to grow up.

Aw, crap. I hate being an adult.

Note: I’ve touched on this before, but “being an adult” does not mean you can NEVER hide under a blanket. 

You know you're a senior when...

It’s a late Friday afternoon at the library and you’re the only one there.  The staff eye you oddly, wondering if you have friends.  They want you to leave so they can go home early, but you know you won’t because you have three end-of-term projects due in 3 days.

You go home anyway.  The projects will get done at some point.

Random dance parties become a necessary expulsion of stress.

You use the library’s media/tech services to make life-size cardboard cutouts of Alex Trebek, rather than for class presentations.

Oh, Alex. You're such a charmer.

All the other students look like young children.

You would rather play with your Ultimate Frisbee league in cold rain, wind, lightning and potential tornadoes than go to class or do your homework.

You spend increasing amounts of time pondering your future.

You spend increasing amounts of time avoiding pondering your future.

You live at the local coffeeshop.

You’ve said, “Oh, well you’re only a sophomore.  You’ve got plenty of time to pick a major” at least twice.

You know about the secret loft in the English building.

Either you have access to, or you know someone who can give you access to, at least one restricted area.

Oh, those naive young days when I had
no special keys to anything...

You have been to the houses of multiple professors.

Your cap and gown are in one of two places: stuffed in the closet, or hidden under the bed.

You wonder if they will really refuse to give you a diploma because your academic requirements aren’t met yet.

You have attended one or more “senior dinners.”

You know the best places to go in order to snag free coffee or food.  (It helps if your college has a hotel on campus…a hotel with continental breakfast…)

You have underclassmen friends sneak you bagels and gummy bears out of the cafeteria because you’re no longer on meal plan.

Crossing items off the college bucket list becomes a frantic activity.

You take any excuse to go to the local pub: “It’s my last Stein Night.” “I have class there.”  “All the senior Spanish majors are going.” “It’s the twenty-seventh day after Labor Day AND the second Monday of the month. Hoo ra.”

You’ve learned how to nap and study at the same time.  Yes, that’s right.  Mastered it.

You’ve fallen asleep on top of this at least once:

You were expecting something else?

You get cool ideas to makes lists like “you know you’re a senior when,” and then you get bored and go do something else.

On Efficiency

I’m not the most academically minded student this semester.  In the past I could study like a champion, but somehow my efficiency has slowly leeched away and left me wondering where my hours have gone.  Seriously, I used to slam out at least two papers an hour, but now even the most basic intro paragraph takes monumental effort. 

No, really. This blog post has taken literally days to formulate.  I’m so lazy right now.  Instead of attending to that pesky reaction paper, I would rather sit on my bed and stare at the calendar on my computer, slowly watch time slip away as I quietly zone out. Ohmygoodgollygracious, I think dazedly, I think I’m going to graduate. 

I’ll glance at the clock, desperately hoping one of my housemates will call up the stairs and rescue me from academic prison. 

This is a new trend for me; I used to be a good student.  I did my assignments ahead of schedule and had plenty of time left over for other interests. Reaction papers were minor annoyances in life, took me only a few minutes to BS.  But now I struggle to find creative ways of saying, “This was a great event/class/speaker and I am a more complete person for attending.”  Why can’t I just say, “This was a great event/class/speaker and I am a more complete person for attending.”  Seems straightforward enough to me, but somehow my professors still think it’s insufficient. 

Occasionally I will go to the library and schlep all my books and bags up to the fourth floor, wrap myself in isolation and try to block out all external stimuli. I will be productive. I will be efficient! I will get work done! Yeah! Boo yah! I just need *one* good party song to get me pumped up…and after 20 minutes of my own private dance-party-in-a-chair (thank heavens the fourth floor is usually deserted) I realize that I have done nothing.

Bad Self, I mentally slap myself. Back to work.

I change the music to something more soothing, a nice piano mix on Pandora, and immerse myself in paper-writing.

Then the sun peeks through the window.  And it’s so warm.  And I’m so sleepy.  And the chair I’m sitting in isn’t particularly comfortable, but the one over there is a recliner-type chair…maybe just a quick break.  When I wake up with a snort a half hour later, I scold myself again.  Really bad Self.

Settling back into work, I’ll re-write my goal list, crossing out the things I know I won’t get to:

• edit Courtney's paper


• plan IR slides


• read poems


• column


• blogs (2)


• APP STUFF


• VWS response

At this point, I have accepted my sharp decline in efficiency.  Rather than crank through dozens of mundane reaction papers, I would rather hang with friends and bake cake at 1 am, or drink wine and cluster in front of the TV to watch Jeopardy!  

I know I’ll graduate. I don’t know when I’ll next spend time with the people who have become my college family.  So…it’s not actually laziness. It’s re-prioritizing.

That's my story and I'm stickin to it.

Procrastination: Our Real Job

I’m no numbers major, but I made this graph and I firmly believe it states pure truth.

On the x-axis we have the semester in school, and on the y-axis we have the scale for the necessity of doing things other than homework. This scale should normally reach an absolute maximum of 20.

Look at the graph again.

I believe that’s what my math and science friends would call a “positive , or direct, relationship.” Yeah. Is there a technical term for that huge jump at the end?

Second-semester seniors make it our job to procrastinate. Some have correctly labeled this a disease: senioritis. Debilitating, and extremely contagious.

Procrastination evolves over a student’s lifetime. It has to. “My dog ate my homework” just won’t cut it in college – neither will “I swear, Professor, someone broke into my dorm and stole all my books!” Students need upper-level excuses to match our upper-level education.

This means that “procrastination” and “excuses” are two words that must morph into something new. They must grow, stretch beyond their original boundaries, discover things about themselves that they never thought were possible. (Maybe that’s what we students are supposed to do too?)

“Procrastination” learns that she will actually become “re-prioritizing.” Yes, that paper needs to be written, but first let’s deal with the huge pile of laundry stinking up the room. Hmm, I should attend that evening guest speaker, but my friends are going bowling – it’s my last semester and I need bonding time with them; who knows when I’ll get it again?

“Excuses” fades into nothingness; by the time we’re all seniors we simply don’t offer them anymore. We are adults, well able to manage our time and arrive punctually if we wish/don’t wish. We also know our professors won’t believe our explanations anyway. (There is a caveat to this, to be explained in another post.)

Since I’ve already used this post to branch from my humanities majors into mathematics (remember my awesome graph?), I think I’ll delve into psychology as well. In future posts I will attempt to analyze student behavioral patterns in order to discern how our brains rationalize certain events, people, or circumstances as more important than homework.

Yeah, right.