It?s that time of year again. Students are decorating their rooms with colorful lights, paper Christmas trees and tinsel. They are going downtown multiple times per week to participate in holiday-esque activities?absorbing the atmosphere, ice skating, buying Chicago coffee mugs for grandmothers.
Christmas music can be heard from the street, blaring from every floor of the dorms. Everyone is running around in their mittens and puffy down coats, taking pictures, hugging and sticking out their tongues to catch snowflakes from the first snowfall of the year.
But I think this ?Christmas spirit? should be seen for what it truly is: Procrastination.
After Thanksgiving break, North Park students had one full week of classes before exam week. Last week, everyone had tons of stuff due. But, of course, no one wanted to do any of it.
I thought I was an expert procrastinator in high school. Since coming to college, though, I realize now how naive I was to think I already knew it all. I have gained oceans of procrastination experience in the past four months.
The most obvious form of procrastination is Facebook. Perhaps those of you with an account have found yourselves ?stalking? (or, as I like to put it, ?observing?) way too many profiles and pictures. Before you know it, two hours have passed!
This seems to be the story of my life. Reading people?s status updates and notes is not really that interesting, but it seems more enticing than writing a paper.
Another ace way to procrastinate?without completely demolishing your GPA?is to do less?important homework first. I discovered that, second to Facebook, this is what I do most of the time.
For example, instead of writing my giant research paper for my Bible class, I chose to instead do all of the worksheets for two entire units of Spanish. That was about four weeks of work, sandwiched into two days.
I?m actually doing that right this very instant. I have about 28 hours until deadline for this column. In 18 hours, though, I have to give a Spanish presentation?which I have yet to prepare for.
Another great method of procrastination that has at least a little bit of productive quality is sending an e-mail to every family member you know. Grandma and Aunt Barbara (I just made that name up, but I actually have an Aunt Barbara!) would love to hear from you, and there is a wonderful sense of accomplishment and happiness in sending your grandmother an enormous and informational e-mail.
And just think, another hour of NOT doing homework is out of the way.
Kendra and I have a preferred form of procrastination. We each sit on our beds with our computers and face each other. We then have contests to see who can find the most adorable picture or video online.
More often than not, our searches pull up baby animals doing cute things. Her new desktop background: a tiny white rat holding an even tinier teddy bear.
About two days ago I discovered Omegle.com. You can go to the site and immediately begin chatting. You are listed as ?you? and the other person is listed as ?stranger.? The site?s tagline: ?Talk to strangers!? There are some weird and gross people, but if you don?t like a conversation, you can disconnect immediately and be done with it.
I like to pretend I?m Harry Potter?s best friend or a person from Wisconsin. That?s my thing?when people ask where I?m from, I just say I live with the cows in Wisconsin. I feel like that?s safe.
My new favorite thing to do, though, is watch ?The OC.? I won?t spend much time talking about this because yes, I know, ?The OC? is ?soooo over? and apparently not everyone shares my intense obsession with Ryan?s broodiness and Seth?s witty sarcasm.
But I feel like I should mention that if I?m not watching it, all I want to do is be watching it. I skipped class twice this week to watch it. Oh wait?my whole family reads this. I mean?um? I have NEVER SKIPPED A CLASS because my education is VERY IMPORTANT TO ME and I?m BEING AWARDED A MEDAL BY THE MAYOR for GETTING STRAIGHT A?S. And ?The OC? does not play any role in my daily life. Just to clarify.
Well. Now that I?ve spent a good chunk of time doing this, I need to nap and participate in at least two other forms of procrastination before I work on my presentation. I?ll be back in Hills?boro this Saturday and will be home for a month. If you want a cookie and/or hug, seriously stop by my house.
