Era of Procrastination

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.--Charles Darwin

Anyone can tell you about procrastination. It is a universal conundrum, affecting drooling toddlers and drooling seniors alike, and striking down young high schoolers. It is the bane of all workers even slightly at risk to distractions... And like anything else universally affecting the entire human population, like a ludicrous love for peanut butter and ham waffles, procrastination can be broken down into a few different time frames...

A national dish of all 900 countries.

General Overview

Next time your parents try to convince you that sorting dominoes according to the number of dots on each side is less important than homework, try this: Ask them about their childhood and their own school procrastination. Chances are they'll tell you an interesting story and help you procrastinate at the same time; you just bought yourself some time to figure out how to arrange those two blocks with a 5-2 pattern on each side. Just don't glance at the domino box too often or they'll catch on. My mum recalled living across the street from the school, and as she went every morning her own mother would watch her... so my mum went in the front of the school and waltzed right out the back whenever she felt like it. But the point is, procrastination convinces you that an infinite number of things are more desirable than homework: smelling that stain on your ceiling, staring at dust floating in your room, even gazing slack-jawed at a pencil for three hours will suffice. But let me indulge you with a few slightly more specific and thoroughly incapacitating examples of procrastination that you're all too familiar with...

"Good habits start now!"

Sunday Night Blues

"Man, this was one great weekend. From Friday night hanging out behind 7-11 and getting yelled at by the Indian owner to Sunday afternoon having one-handed shoelace tying competitions with your friends, the excitement just kept on comin'!" Well, guess what, it's now Sunday night, 9:00, and it turns out your backpack hasn't even been opened. Hell, you can't bring yourself to recall where you put it. After an hour of digging  through layers of dirty clothes, food wrappers, and fruit husks, you successfully excavate your academic portmanteau and begin to peruse your papers. Time to get to work.

Three hours later, you wake up. Seriously, time to get to work... right after I check my email.

It's now 2:45am, and you're knee deep in three sentences of literary wisdom. The essay due needs to fill five pages. Single-spaced. Dude, just go to sleep at this point. Tell the teacher your backpack got buried in a landslide, it's basically the truth.

Except that's not homework. He's researching sandpit backpack removal techniques.

Day-Before Deadline

As you receive the assignment, you vow, "This time, it'll be done a WEEK before deadline. I swear, my work will overflow with grace, beauty, and education, and my teacher will deferentially bow before me for the rest of the year in awe of such a masterpiece."

This is what you said a month ago. You told yourself it would get done next week every weekend, and guess what, the deadline is tomorrow and the empty word doc is mocking you with a grin while it shakes its private parts at your auntie (Holy Grail ref). In other words, yep, you're screwed. Once again, the only option is to sit down and power through it... or you could go and raid the fridge for the ninth time today. Is there even a question which one you pick?

Too hungry to sleep. Too tired to eat. Still better than doing homework.

Period Before Class

Well, this time, the teacher assigned some asinine form of homework yesterday. But, once again, you had much better things to do after school like skipping rocks on the street and planking on top of moving cars dressed as a gorilla. When you got back home, between eating and eating, there was no time to pause your frenzied chewing and do 800 math problems. The next day, in school, you're too lazy to even copy the work. C'mon, even Ben copies his work in a timely manner, you lazy, poo-sniffing, no good yellabelly bum. But you have class next period, and it's now or never, buster... but your friends are playing cards, and they only do this the entire day, so it would be like a sin to miss out! At this point, just... just drop out of high school and become a Walmart greeter or something. But you'd probably suck at that, too.

A synopsis of the next five years of your life.

THOSE Teachers

Foiled : The Tragic Stories of 4 Teachers You Know

Y'know, I'm a nonconfrontational kind of guy. Authority figures and domineering teachers are totally cool with me, so long as they don't interfere with my lunchtime. Ms. Hoppersnap still hasn't recovered from giving me lunchtime detention. But you see, sometimes- sometimes, teachers aren't so simple and manageable as to be dealt with according to modern conventions of "sanity" and "social tact." Some teachers, simply put, exhibit similar traits to those of an infuriated honey badger with pens duct taped to it, yet strikingly less awesome. And you've had to fight him and put him down with nothing but a broken stapler and three Post-its.

RRghhhgrrgh. KILL. RGghgirrriri!

The Eternally Disorganized Teacher: Amateur Spelunker

    We've all been here. You proudly hand in your essay, head high and chest puffed out, after thrashing it out of your brain after an early-morning panic attack finishing it. The teacher, eyes glazed over and hair disheveled, tie leaning tiredly to one side, smiles weakly. "Oh.. an, ahem... essay..." Aforementioned educator then slumps over into a deep "meditation" session among caves of paper, mountains of reports, stapler fortresses, folder valleys, and somewhere deep in there- a dusty computer screen. Hopefully, the teacher wakes up and finds your essay. More often than not, 80%+ of the papers and assignments he/she receives will never see the light of day again, much like the teacher's computer and deodorant.

Damn. Where did I leave that keybo*mumblemumble..*

The Deadline Stickler  (all teachers now to be deferred to as males for expedited pronounage)

    High school students are busy, let's face it. Between procrastinating, parties, and pretending to play sports when the coach isn't watching, you're really all booked. But that doesn't matter to the deadline stickler. Oh, no. Lateness will NOT be tolerated, he says. I assigned this assignment in a timely manner (during the weekend) and I expect you guys to hold up your end of the sacrosanct high school homework social agreement and hand this assignment in a timely manner (two days after it was due; assignment is three essays). Once again, more often than not, the deadline stickler will finally give you back your tests and essays during graduation with all 90's- because there wasn't enough time to grade it. Well pooh-paah, looks as if I might not ever have enough time to do your homework again! (Just kidding, again implies I did some at one point.)

Just kidding, I'll move it up a week if you want!

The Homework-Bulldozer Hybrid

   Mr. Bull[dozer] has clearly never been a student. A permutation of the deadline stickler, Mr. Bull is worse for the fact that he does not even know which class he's teaching at any point in time. Usually, he will assign projects and presentations to students whilst in the process of trying to figure out whether he's a literature or physics teacher- all based on the assignments he gets back. Students do him no such courtesy, mixing all subjects in to throw him off the scent. As backlash, he sits at his desk brooding, and will call up a student.  "Bradley.."    "My name is Raj."   "Ah, yes, Richard."     "Raj."    "Okay there, student, I have some papers for this class in this stack of papers. Hand out 12 copies, three form types each, to your classmates.

They're near the top somewhere, Richard. See you next week.

The Lieutenant Captain of the SS Obvious

      In order to properly emphasize what a complete nincompoopy, tubby-gutted moron this kind of teacher is, an imaginary rank must be assigned to elevate him far above the average Captain Obvious. With a sporting IQ of 19 (takes an IQ of 8 to grunt), this teacher has no will to teach. He probably went to a community college, and hell, the only reason he's a teacher is because he's now eligible for discounted lunch at the cafeteria. Lt. Admiral Captain Obvious does not know a thing about his subject, though he might happen to remember which one he teaches. Instead of offering pithy insight and relevant information, Lt. Captain Lameface will regurgitate facts found in your textbook, occasionally muddling them yet still boring the pants off of everyone in class.

And then the Japanese submarines torpedoed, uh, Carl Columbus' caravel in... 18, hm, 33. Sounds good, students?

Luckily for myself, I've managed to avoid most of these toxic teachers of the years. Many of my past teachers have given me an academic edge through the things and methods they have taught me, though many a pair of pants have indeed been bored right off of me. Thanks to Amr Tawfik for helping me brainstorm a few of these.