my life, my pace

I’ve always been a procrastinator. And it’s always worked for me. Here’s why.

Forget studying for that test! I need to clean the desk/study/house! Besides, the test is still a whole two days away. Don’t I need to turn in that progress report? Well, it’s not due till June so I’ll clean up my desk here at lab first. Then I’ll make that table for my experiment tomorrow. Since I need it by tomorrow, after all. My major professor is on my case about making sure our new data analysis program works but I really need to organize my laptop desktop first. Why? Because I have no need of this program until I actually get some data from my experiments. Until then, why bother? And then there’s the whole studying for the qualifying exam thing. Important? Yes. Big and scary? Yes. Am I studying for it now? No. Why? Because I have a million other things I need to do first, like brushing the dog, cleaning the house, writing in my blog. Blogging is this procrastinator’s dream—there’s always another post I have to write right when I need to get to some annoying task or other.

Ah…to be completely unproductive yet productive at the same time—I’m truly living my life at my pace.

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1. it’s so simple…...to keep the house clean.  All you really have to do is always clean up any mess you make immediately.  Because the longer you leave it, the more it piles up and the more daunting the task becomes, which just makes you avoid it more.  I'm by no means a clean freak.  But I've adopted the above mentality in order to force myself to not be a complete slob.  Unfortunately, that strategy just doesn't work when your other half (read: husband) doesn't quite comply.  I really don't have time to clean up both my mess and then his too.  And the worst part is that he will go and make messes right where I've cleaned up, completely undermining all of my hard work.  Because of that, I'll give up and just let the mess pile up.  And then we'll have guests.  And I end up having to storm through the house cleaning everything up as fast as I can when I'm already exhausted from a long week of not getting enough sleep because he's still insisting on being a slimy premed.  Can you tell that I have to go clean the house now for a visit from the in-laws this weekend?  Double fun!...
2. good riddanceAnd just like that, the pesky freeloading kids are gone! What's this weird sensation I'm feeling? I think it's called euphoria. The house is finally mine again...well, as soon as I clean up all the mess they left behind. But that'll be for tomorrow. Right now, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy something I haven't had for eight weeks and have been sorely missing: silence....
3. i should be in full-on freakout modeBut I'm not.  And I sit around debating why I'm not instead of freaking out and studying.  I think about freaking out and studying but I just can't quite get myself to do it.  Let's put it this way.  Everything is not going to be okay.  My qualifying exam is in less than a month and I have yet to:1. Make my Powerpoint presentation of my thesis project.2. Study everything that I was told to study (I conveniently ignored all the broad topics and the hunt-for-papers topics).3. Think about all the holes in my project and how to plug them up.  Especially statistics.4. Know anything and everything about my project backwards, forwards, sideways, and upside down.5. Read my committee members' papers. 6. Memorize everything that I supposedly already studied.Can I really do all of that in less than a month?  Probably not, even if I didn't sleep for that whole time.  And yet what have I been doing?  Let's see.  Today, I slept in until noon.  Then I ate.  Then I watched an episode of a Japanese drama.  Then I surfed the web.  Then I opened my notebook.  Read less than one page.  Surfed some more.  Then I found some sweet online after-Christmas sales and wasted a good chunk of time.  Then there was dinner.  More online shopping.  Put Santa hat on my dog just to annoy him.  Memorized two lines on anesthetic mechanism of action.  Made ringtones for my husband's cell phone.  Cleaned the house because my husband's friend is...

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