Wednesday, December 15, 2010

I Always Pull It Out (That's What She Said)

I'm usually not a procrastinator. In college, I was very good at time-management. When I was in Florida last year, I got my homework done weeks in advance depending on the workload at the time.

But this semester has been a struggle. The situation with depression, Skidmark, & my ridiculous work schedule has made getting schoolwork done early (& well) has been thrown out of the window. This Sunday I had a 10-12 page paper about my cultural family heritage that I was really struggling with. I had allotted certain times to work on it because of work, so it shouldn't have been a problem. But because we're so understaffed & I seem to have the most availability, almost every shift I worked was rearranged & I got called in on days off.

Now, because of this issue with being understaffed, we are all being forced to work 7-10 hour shifts without breaks because there's usually only 2 people working. Yes, it's illegal. I know that. Thanks. Anyway, whenever I'm not at work, I'm flat-out exhausted. No energy to type or think. All I want to do is sleep. But this paper had to be done.

I had Saturday night off. All of the research was done. The title page was done. The references were cited. I started writing. Then Skidmark is all in a tizzy, cleaning & whatnot. I assumed he was bringing someone over. He did. I could hear them talking & someone used the bathroom about 8 times in the span of an hour.

Because I was frustrated, I texted Katie from my church small group. She called me back & said she & some other people from church were coming to get me. I protested, stating I had to get this beast written. Then Brennan took the phone from her & told me he was taking me back to his place in Fayetteville. I stopped fighting.

They came & got me. Brennan apparently doesn't know how to get to his house from where I was because we went about 40 minutes out of the way. It took us about 2 1/2 hrs to make a trip that usually takes only a little over an hour. Whatever. I got some of the paper written there. Then Katie came & got me. I realized as we were leaving Fayetteville that I left my laptop & books in Brennan's car. So we had to get those.

I get home about 40 minutes before I have to work (by the way, I tried to get someone to cover this shift & no one at MULTIPLE stores could do it for me, so I'm done picking up shifts for people for a while). I decided to do a discussion board post because I knew the paper would be done late & there was no point in risking 2 late grades as opposed to 1. When I got back from work, the internet wasn't working well. Of course.

Monday after work, I come home to finish the paper. Then there's a power-surge & the internet stops working. Are you serious?

I call Katie & we go over to Ryan's (also in our small group) to finish this paper. I stupidly drink a beer before I start writing & it makes the whole experience just the more frustrating. It ended up being one of the worst things I've ever written (possibly worse than anything I've written on this here blog). But I turned that bitch in 10 minutes before it would have been 2 days late. Didn't even proof read.

And guess what.

I got a 95 on it.

5 points off for it being late.

I am unstoppable.

7 comments:

Lex said...

wow. i am thoroughly impressed!

Aubree said...

isn't it the best when you pull things like this out of your ass at the 11th hour and still get awesome grades? well maybe not the best. but still pretty damn great. i be proud.

Andrew said...

Why thanks. I kind of hate it because of the stress it causes, but at least it ended well.

Caleb said...

So a hastily thrown-together paper, not proof-read, and of (your admission) lousy quality, was given an A?

This is my complaint with teachers and education. If they don't demand your best work, who will?

I'd rather get an earned C than a meaningless A. If I know I can skate by with minimal effort, than I will do so.

Took dozens of teachers to reinforce this lesson, and one good teacher to correct it.

Remind me to buy Dr. Bob Washut a beer when I see him next.

Caleb

PS oh yeah- congrats on getting your paper turned in

Andrew said...

I'm also a perfectionist, & I always think my papers are shit. And when I e-mailed him of my shock, he told me he really, truly thought it was excellent.

I used to never proof read & still got great grades, so this wasn't super uncommon.

I dunno....the whole thing just kind of makes me feel icky.

Laura said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Laura said...

See now the problem with this is that it is sure to cause cockiness. Why bother trying at all if this shoddy effort would have got 100% if handed in 2 days before? Not that it is rubbish...but your effort was slim was it not? If we're late by even a minute the maximum we can get is 40%...which by the way is the minimum grade for a pass. Pure madness. Congrats...may as well carry on working and sleeping eh? :p

Laura x
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