Twice a semester -- before my midterms and final exams and projects -- spurred by some irremediable tendency to procrastinate, I reach the same conjecture: that we are only free when we have nothing that can be done in the last minute.
However, my procrastination has never caused me to miss a due date. (Perhaps my unconscious is too kind to me when it comes to my memory’s organization.) Certainly, my mother would tell me that my work would be of a better quality if I did it over longer periods, but I am a lad of the instant and I do not think my attention span could last for so long. I will go for periods without thinking of a topic, only to appear to devote my life to it for a brief period. This applies to anything: books, videogames, walks with my dog, schoolwork, excercise, poetry, language, careerwork, websites, family members, friends, life.
Today and yesterday night, I had hours to study for my Chinese final, but I did not begin until an hour and a half before the exam. Prior to then, I was having a succession of fantastic dreams during a much-extended sleeping session. My alarm woke me several times, but the fleeting whimsies in my bed kept calling me back. So I pushed the sleep button and delayed my study. 我不是一个好学生. I am not a good student. (But I am a great dreamer.)
Well, it is 12 am on Saturday, which means that I have 24 hours to obsess over the last two-thirds of Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan before it is due to the library. Damn all that is to be done in the last minute!
No comments:
Post a Comment