Working Under Pressure

Here I am in my floor’s lounge at 2 am trying to think of a topic to write about in my column which, incidentally, was due at noon yesterday. I must have been extremely busy with important academic whatnot, you say, to have been forced to do my column so late. Uh, no. Not really. As a matter of fact, I’ve already written two cards to friends, watched a movie, done laundry, and reorganized my MP3 file list. None of which were the least bit homework related. Simply more proof that today’s greatest labor saving device is tomorrow.

I am what you might call a ‘last-minute’ type of person. I fail to understand why teachers assign many-paged papers weeks in advance. I don’t use the time. My best work (I keep telling myself) is accomplished within a few hours of any deadline. Maybe I would do my work a lot better if I did it earlier. Then again, maybe not. This is an unexplored realm for me, as I have no recollections of doing assignments early. I’m working with the facts I have. I don’t have the willpower to do the assignment in advance, so the threat of a deadline is the only thing that motivates me.

My concept of time must be a little shaky, too. I always think that I have more time than I actually do. That, or I have an alternate theory that I worked up one day when I had a paper due. I feel that time, as it inches closer to a deadline of some sort, is actually compressed by the pressure placed upon me. Therefore an hour before a deadline is not truly an hour. The compression is proportional to the amount of stress I am under. I also am trying to work in something about negative time. I haven’t gotten all of the kinks out, but I’m working on it.

Procrastination has many levels. This column is one of the lower ones. I’d rather watch a movie than write this column, but I’d rather write this column than take a calc test. Of course, I’d prefer to have a limb amputated than take a calc test, but that’s more of an issue of my mad math love than one of procrastination. The tiers of the procrastination triangle are possibly infinite. And if not, I’m more than happy to be the one to explore them and find out. Procrastination rules the nation!!