At eleven o’clock on Wednesday night, I sat in the dining room of my sorority house working on life-changing research. “Am I loyal, obnoxious, the life of the party—“
“Are you taking a Buzzfeed quiz?” comes from across the room.
“No…” But of course I was.
Honestly, I don’t have that much to do. With three weeks left in the semester—plus the extra week-and-a-half of finals—summer is right on the horizon. In two weeks, I will be completely done with three of my classes, with final projects left to do in only two of them. So why don’t I just get it all done?
Procrastination is a serious disorder that affects 100% of people. I didn’t look that up, but it sounds accurate. We procrastinate doing homework for sure, but also taking showers, working out, dieting, and even going to bed. If something is assigned, there is a 99% chance that I will procrastinate doing it, even if it’s something fun like watching a movie or writing this blog.
Procrastinating is easy, especially with the advent of the Internet coinciding with our generation’s formative schooling years. I can’t remember a time where the lure of a glowing screen—be it from a Harry Potter CD-ROM or Facebook—wasn’t enough to tempt me away from whatever I should have been working on.
Every night, I sit in this dining room with those like me: the girls who watch three-hour movies on Netflix rather than read another case in their ConLaw books, those who take midnight trips to WalMart for cereal that we have in our pantry just so they can avoid the thought of poring over yet another packet of geology slides. Sometimes we have uproarious conversations that result in dance parties and sometimes we are miserable on our own.
***
At midnight, the dining room started to clear of the girls complaining about eating too much and not getting enough done. I waved as they headed upstairs. At this point, I had made a list of everything I had to do before Friday: edit my screenplay, read two books, write a blog post, an article and the script for the television show I work for.
I realize at this point that much of my homework seems farcical, fun, or even unimportant to the serious-minded future Applied Mathematics and Supply Chain Logistics major. And for the most part, it totally is more fun than the charts and formulas you have to work on. But it’s still homework. It still drives me towards figuring out which Friends character I am or what my second-grade boyfriend has been up to for the past fifteen years. It is un-fun just for the sake of being work that someone ordered me to do.
***
Around 1:00 am, the girls who went to coffee shops or the library only to take Snapchats with “#studying” or Instagrams of their artsy coffee mugs rolled in. They sheepishly waved at me, knowing that I knew that they spent more time discussing the possible merits of a Hunger Games or whether Kate Middleton will make a successful queen.
I, myself, went to bed around two, mostly because I would rather stay up and make myself as tired as possible so I can walk into class five minutes late the next day and pretend that I am cooler than I really am. My professor luckily teaches all seniors (which I am not) so he’s slightly lenient. Hey, at least I’m not the guy who walks in a half hour late.
So Godspeed as you make your way through college, trying to avoid the temptation of the devil that is “things other than what you need to get done even though they’re more fun in the meantime.” While procrastinating is fun, there is a certain sweetness to going to bed before midnight knowing that everything due the next day is complete.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, I turned this in at the very last minute, because you know, I found other things to do.