What I Really Learned in College

Sorry, readers, about my lack of posting this weekend. I was out and about most of the day Saturday and feeling under the weather most of the day yesterday (and well into the night, really--nothing worse than having to get up at 5:15 but you are already awake at 2:30 feeling quite ill...SUPER!)

Now I am up, still feeling a bit off, and I am about to leave for a fun filled day of meetings at work. I am sure that it will be more of "okay, so here's what you should be doing with your classes this year..." The problem? I am a planner--I plan WAY ahead for things, so, telling me to change lesson plans a week before kids get into the building is quite silly because I am already planned through December.

I didn't use to be a planner. I used to be the world's biggest procrastinator (really), but somehow I always pulled everything off. I would wait until the last minute to type a paper for high school or I would wait until the last minute to finish a project or something. Then I got to college and did the same thing for my first semester. It went well, so, when second semester started, I figured "I did it once, I can do it again."

I was wrong.

I had a history professor who was crazy (not as crazy as the professor I had who swore birds communicated through telepathy, but crazy nonetheless). He gave us insane amounts of questions to answer and his exams were horrible, but I managed. He told us at the beginning of the semester that part of our final grade was going to be to turn in a typed copy of all the notes and questions that he had given us all semester. Now, the smart thing to do would have been to type the questions as I went and have nothing to do at the end of the semester. BUT--I was a procrastinator who hadn't ever been bitten in the butt by the habit, so I thought "why waste time now--I'll do it all later."

So, the weekend before finals arrived and I started typing. And I typed, and typed, and typed. When I got tired, my mom helped (before you judge--she didn't answer questions, she typed my answers. Still horrible, but she could see I was struggling). I typed well into the night on Sunday...wee hours of the morning, actually. When I finally finished, it was nearly 4 am. I hit print--and I got nothing but blank pages. My word processor had run out of ink. I walked into my parents' bedroom, uttered the phrase "I'm dead" and proceeded to have a nervous breakdown right there. My mom had ZERO sympathy (I think because it was 4 in the morning) and she told me to figure it out for myself. I jumped into the car, went to the nearest 24 hour superstore and prayed they had what I needed.

They did.

I raced home and started printing. By this time it was after 5 am, and it was only at that time that I remembered that I also had a Political Science final that morning at 8:00. I tried to study, but I was exhausted. I decided that I would have to make due with what I remembered from Poli/Sci during the semester and I dozed off for a couple hours...

I ended up getting a B on my Poli/Sci final (pretty good, really, considering that I could barely make sense of any questions) and I got all my history questions turned in (and got an A), but I learned a valuable lesson. PROCRASTINATION IS BAD!!! To this day, I am a notorious planner...

Which is why if anyone tells me today to change my plans, my rules, or my expectations I may snap.