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.

High School: The Way too Longest Yard

Back in 8th grade, our teachers would threaten us with tales of high school, telling us we were "unprepared" and "stop chewing your desk, they don't do that in high school," among other gems of advice. And in 8th grade, as the end of the year came faster than a rocket-powered cheetah, we hunkered down and prayed that somehow, our graduation would be delayed by that Jell-O factory across the street flooding our school, trapping us in blissful middle school-dom forever.

But not anymore. We're big boys and girls in high school. Much to the chagrin of any living thing that crosses the street once in awhile, many high school students can drive. We've taken our tests, finished our classes, did what we had to do... and the end of the year is still just a speck on the horizon. Why?

An adequate summation of how every high school senior feels

Midterms Loom Like Bucktoothed Giants

For some reason, college students have their finals in our third month of school, something which makes a startlingly small amount of sense to me. We, on the other hand, have midterms (spoiler alert) at the end of January. Besides a late-night cram session or two, midterms signify the academic middle of the year for us. These midterms will be the last where most teachers have taught at least 45%+ of the material actually on the midterm and some teachers literally just hand out old tests hastily stapled together... In other words, midterms remind us that we're nearly done with our school year. But even those are so far away...

Pictured: A recurring theme of all education

Senioritis Strikes Fast and Furiously. Jk, *struck

As seniors vie and plot towards the end of senior year, teachers haven't come to grips with the fact that senioritis is no longer an innocent flu strain or benign academic tumor; au contraire, it's a contagion and pandemic long come and gone that has shattered what little work ethic and discipline anyone might've had in high school. Some survivors have made it this far; some succumbed during a period of relative calm known as "Stage Freshmania," but noone will manage to retain their virility after midterms, when senioritis spreads faster than a fire in a gasoline and heating oil shop... that is to say, very quickly.

Welcome to senioritis.

Teachers Demand And Assign As if We Cared

It's not that we're not motivated... it's just that we don't really care anymore. With palm trees and college dorms glistening in the distance like beautiful, rapturing dewdrops, who can blame us? Teachers can. Many of us, persisting with what little of our work ethic has been spared from senioritis, have delved into a world of AP classes and all of the courses we previously weren't able to take because of our "inability to do algebra" or "lack of basic reading and writing skills," whatever those are supposed to mean. And so, our fine educators see fit to give us work, and boy, do they give us work. See my previous post on unruly teachers for more details on this one.

After Christmas break, every teacher starts acting like this.

The Destination Outshines the Road

Though that line reads much like the slovenly poetry of a disgruntled english major in college, it rings true nonetheless. We want high school to end, well, because every end is the beginning of another... beginning? What? Huh? That's definitely not how that quote goes... anyway, 99% of seniors plan on going to college. Applications, interviews, FAFSA, and 200,000$ of student debt... nevermind all of that. It's college, an impending era of independence and stupidity which holds a universal appeal to high schoolers. College: High school 3.0. If you want to party for a week straight with only a loincloth on, you can. If staying in your dorm room for an entire semester and avoiding sunlight altogether is your thing, go for it. Eating only microwaved ramen and peeing only in empty ramen containers floats your boat? Float on, 'cap. Only when we get there will we all realize that college will be nothing like the advertisements of smiling chicks and professors that have a sense of humanity about them. In fact, safe to say that college will be more hellish than high school: more work, less free time, more jerks, less home food, ad infinitum. 

entering college after high school:
also like this

But that's when we get there. Imagine seeing a beautiful island glistening in the sun far, far away and instinctively moving towards it as fast as humanly possible, only to realize you've hit the Pacific Garbage Rift once there. Welcome to College Introduction 101!

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.