EDITORIAL: Procrastination: It’s What’s for Dinner

Procrastination:  It’s What’s for Dinner

An Editorial by KC

I graduated from college this past May, and as I look back and reflect I wonder just how the hell I did it!  I know that most of the articles and pieces that you find on this site are pop culture related, but I also think that life improvement is an important service that we might extend to our wonderful readers.  It is a desire to improve that has led Junior and the (formerly) Amazing Gordo to partake in a competition, The Weight Loss Challenge of 2011 (and you know that you will be telling your children and great grandchildren about this historic event.)  So inspired by the dedication of these two, and having missed two huge deadlines for this website, I have decided to write about an old enemy of mine…procrastination.

         

I mentioned graduating from college at the beginning of this article and my amazement at having done so.  After I graduated from High School, I had no idea that I could be successful in college.  I went for many years bumping my head against the wall and trying to find some kind of direction in life, and after floating from terrible job to terrible job, I decided that something needed to change.  I had never taken an SAT or an ACT and couldn’t even tell you what those letters stand for.  I went to the local community branch of a nearby college, Miami University (the one in Ohio, not Florida…and yes there is a Miami in Ohio) and took the tests I needed to take for them to place me.  I ended up going into the very entry level math and English classes (007 way below 101 even.) 

I had the attitude that I couldn’t succeed but with a little work, I got through those classes and began to fulfill the basic courses that the school required.  I first began noticing my propensity for procrastinating in Spanish class.  I would literally get sick at my stomach the night before a test as I tried to cram whatever information I could get in such a little time and I wondered why I was doing this to myself instead of being a good little student and working on it every day.  To my surprise I never failed a test and ended up with B’s in the four required foreign language credit classes. 

I stayed on top of the math a little more, because it’s always been a thorn in my side.  I’m not ashamed to say that I took advantage of the tutoring department (is that what it’s called?  The tutoring department?)  I knew that I wouldn’t be successful in those classes if I didn’t do at least a little work.  The one hour of tutoring a week was basically the only studying I did for algebra and later statistics.  It’s not that I didn’t want to do more; it’s just that homework wasn’t turned in and my eyes would glaze over as soon as I started working problems. 

Unbelievably I passed and got my math credits too, getting a B in algebra and a B in Statistics.  I was incredibly happy with my B’s because I was the type that brought home straight D’s (if I was lucky) in Jr. High and High School.  I was also one of these students who stayed undeclared for way too long because I could never make my mind up about what I would even want to major in.  I finally decided on Mass Communication because I’ve always had a fascination with media.  I later decided to double major with my other concentration being in Creative Writing (not that you could tell from my own writing.)

It was when I got through the core classes and got into my majors that I started pulling in straight A’s.  This is unbelievable, I thought.  And I was actually having fun and enjoying my classes…at least until my old friend procrastination caught up with me.

It got far worse in my senior year, which I chalk up to senioritis, but there were ten page papers that I’ve known about all semester that I literally had no idea what I was going to write about until the night before.  It got to the point where I would start a paper at 7am finish it around 10 and turn it in at 11.  There’s no way I should have been able to do that, but remarkably I did and those papers got decent marks.  Comments like “this is a well thought out and original paper” were the norm.  I would literally ignore the papers all semester, my brain would just float away when I put any thought into it, and then in a sudden burst of inspiration I would bang something out that would actually get a good grade.  Weeks of worrying would give way to a mad rush to put something down on paper and get something turned in, and it usually worked.  I didn’t receive one F or a D or even a C.  I’m still sitting here amazed that it worked.  I would even research the paper while I was writing it!  Thank God Almighty that the library website gave me access to scholarly articles.  There’s no way I could have done this without the internet!

So I guess the lesson I learned is I’m the kind of person who can wait until the last minute and still bang something successful out.  This website and podcasts are very important to me; this is what I want to do to earn a living the rest of my life, so I guess I need to fight the urge to slack off a little harder.  I was going to start my new feature Smackdown Central:  Between the Blue Ropes last week, but I missed the deadline.  I will have one up for this week’s episode as we move the Beware of Podcast Empire to new heights.