I AM SUCH A SLACKERRRRRRRR!

Yeah.  My example today should never be followed by anyone, ever.  I quite literally spent almost the entire afternoon/evening sitting on my couch surfing the internet (do people even say that anymore?) and watching TV. And that's about it.

I think this is primarily a result of three things:

1) Post-exam study burnout.  When you spend 15 hours studying in one day, it is very hard to become motivated to study the next day.  Unfortunately, the intensive nature of the course makes us have no real breathers after exams; we just plunge right into the next lesson, in the same class period.

2) Exhaustion.  Last night I went to bed around 11:15 (45 minutes later than usual), didn't fall asleep until almost 2:00, and then got up at 7:15, left my apartment at 7:45, drove through McDonalds for breakfast (don't judge me, I was out of cereal), got to campus at 8:00, studied for half an hour, took an exam, then had 2.5 more hours of class.  So I was tired.  BUT, I didn't want to take a nap because I couldn't justify spending time sleeping when I had so much stuff to do...but since I was tired anyway, I still ended up just doing nothing.

3) Overconfidence in the stuff we covered in class today, leading me to assume that homework wouldn't be difficult.  I didn't get a chance to look over Lesson 15 (the Greek perfect tense, if you were wondering) as I was supposed to, but when we covered it in class today it made perfect sense and I was translating sentences mostly correctly off the cuff with ease.  So I figured that since the homework was going to be easy, why start it before 9:00pm?  Yeah.  Not a good idea.  But I did get done what I think we'll get through in class tomorrow, and I'll have the weekend to catch up.

But today, I was a slacker.  Big time.

On the bright side, I was eventually somewhat productive in the realm of domesticity.  I did laundry (finally), hung up two new pieces of wall decor (finally), and cooked a real meal with real ingredients that didn't come out of the freezer (pineapple meatloaf and confetti couscous).  I also played guitar until I wore blisters into the fingers of my left hand (I haven't played in a while).  I also spied on a cluster of attractive men who appeared to be moving into a neighboring apartment, but it turned out that the attractive men were just friends of the lovely young couple who seems to be the real residents.  Drat.

To some things up, I was a mess of procrastination today.  Even as I've been writing this post I've been floating over to Facebook and staring blankly at the screen for no reason...I need a fresh start, and a weekend.  Happily, both come tomorrow, along with some relaxation with friends that I am REALLY looking forward to.  But more on that later.  May you be more productive than me as you carry on with your day.

Procrastination 101

Welcome to Celia's lesson on the Art of Procrastination.  At the end of this course, students will be able to effectively put off working on their homework in creative and vaguely productive fashions, until they magically reach a point where they are willing to complete that work which they aim to procrastinate.

Part 1: What is procrastination?

Procrastination is the deliberate avoidance of a necessary task.  In the case of the seminary student, it may be blamed on ancient Greek's excessive use of conjugation and cases, resulting in an endless set of paradigms that is of such an overwhelming nature that the very thought of homework study induces tactics of avoidance within the student.

Part 2: Practicum

A series of procrastination techniques will now be presented to the student.  These techniques may be performed in any order and according to the student's preference.  Please note that this is merely a sample set of the myriad of procrastination techniques which are available to the average student.  The provided procrastination techniques were collected via a case study of myself on June 4th, 2011.

• Search for a DVD copy of Funny Face at 1) Half-Price Books and 2) Movie Trading Company.  After each of these attempts fails, order the DVD from Amazon for $7.50.

• Make a grocery list.  To lengthen this activity, search through two cookbooks and several online websites to find intriguing and appealing recipes with the cheapest ingredient list possible.

• Go grocery shopping.  Upon return, put groceries away.

• Make homemade hummus.  Since you do not have a specific recipe, you merely experiment with the rough guidelines once given to you by a friend until the result looks and tastes appropriately hummus-like.

• Eat lunch, including the aforementioned hummus and grapes, while watching an episode of Friends on DVD.  Laugh a lot at the sitcom antics.  Follow the healthy lunch with a tasty but unfortunate combination of chocolate chips, peanut butter, and banana that will be satisfying in the moment but later make you feel sick.  This will grant you an extra hour of procrastination.

• Research French Christian student ministries for your job for half an hour.  Begin to feel sick from the previous step.  Cease to work, and lay down on the couch.

• Watch an episode of Gilmore Girls of the title : "The Gnostic Gospels were Found at Nag Hammadi," because you are intrigued as a seminary student about how this reference will be pulled into the episode plot (spoiler: Lorelai and Rory attend a Rare Manuscript Society benefit dinner at Emily's request).  Laugh, and wonder why you don't watch Gilmore Girls more often (especially when you own the first 3 seasons on DVD).

• Go for a walk with the hope that fresh air will be reinvigorating both in health and in productivity.  Call four friends, get their voicemails.  Call your mother, talk to her extensively, and be scolded to go and do your homework.

• Sing your entire college voice lesson repertoire, along with assorted Broadway tunes, with the assistance of karaoke/instrumental YouTube videos.

• Return to the grocery store to purchase Bisquick, which you did not purchase on the morning grocery run, but which is necessary to make the Coconut Pie that you want to bake.

• Attempt to work on homework.  Become overwhelmed.  Attempt fails.

• Use the internet.  This may include watching YouTube videos, stalking high school classmates on Facebook, checking friends' blogs for updates, checking Facebook for updates, etc.  Repeat these steps as often as necessary, as the real-time world of the internet yields the possibility of new posts every few seconds.

• Sit down to really do your homework.  This attempt is successful.  You accomplish several of your assigned Greek Lessons, and make paradigm charts for the Present Middle/Passive Indicative, the Imperfect Active Indicative, and the Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative tenses.  Become more adept at recognizing demonstratives.

• Get hungry.  Decide to make Coconut Pie.  While pie is baking, work on translating a newsletter from French to English, thereby making up the work that was previously delayed due to the chocolate-chip-peanut-butter-banana incident.  When work time is successfully made-up, make Greek vocabulary flashcards.

• Take pie out of the oven.  Marvel at it.  Let it cool, while taking notes from the Greek textbook.  Eat a piece of pie.

• Work on Greek exercises, until you begin to get confused.  Look over weekend to-do list, and discover that a significant amount of work has actually been completed or partially completed.  

Once this final step has been accomplished, the student is free to stop working, with the awareness that less procrastination must be employed tomorrow, and with a decreased feeling of being overwhelmed.

Part 3: Final Exam

In a weekend setting, the final exam is encompassed by the successful ability to complete the necessary study requirements before classes resume on Monday morning.  In our case study, the results of the final exam remains to be seen; however, we remain hopeful of our subject's ultimate success.

This concludes Procrastination 101.  Thank you for your participation.

Disclaimer: Procrastination should not be used excessively, and should not be used to the ultimate detriment of the student.  Celia's blog will not be held responsible for others' abuse of procrastination.