Slaying the Sloth

Well, the title of this post will probably shock and offend my friends here, but I can explain- it's not what you think!

For a good several weeks now, my roommates and a few others have taken to identifying with the cuddly slowpokes so beloved by Kristen Bell, and I have to admit that they are actually adorable in a strangely pathetic way. I mean, they often die by grabbing their own arms in mistake for a tree branch and then falling. They don't really wash themselves (hey...my washing machine has a faulty dryer!) and actually the more I'm thinking about it now aren't very unlike my own favorite animals, the fat and stupid but oh so perfect giant pandas.

Anyway, the past few days I've been feeling much more connected to the fire and brimstone biblical definition of sloth, also known as that terrible vice of sitting in the library for 10 hours watching YouTube videos. There is no exaggeration there, and I'm not proud of it.

I've always had a problem with procrastination, I've definitely bragged about how I could pull off a paper the night before it was due and still get an awesome grade, and it's come to the level of structuring time to panic and stress, where I believed I physically couldn't do well except at the last minute or write anything of value except at 3 am immediately preceding a due date. So I think it's an actual issue, which I've taken to remedying by faking myself out with deadlines and 'challenging' myself to get to a certain word count before time was up. It works to an extent, but only after I've properly stressed myself out with to-do lists and promises of failure and What Ifs. It's a condition of particular impact here in Ireland, since the concept of 'continuous assessment' is an unpopular one, and all of my classes grades are based almost exclusively on final papers due in hard copy during the middle of my journey to Austria. (Did I mention before that I'm going to Austria? I am- in 10 days!!)

So yesterday I think I finally shamed some sense into myself. I came to the library immediately following my class that ended at 10, and didn't properly leave until grabbing dinner before Writers Soc (around 6:15), and then camped back out again after the meeting for another three hours. In that time, I accomplished outlining and mostly finishing one paper, almost entirely done between the hours of 5-6 and 9pm-12am. From 10am to 5pm, I honestly can't really pin down what I did- watched a lot of music videos, read lots of Thought Catalog  (disclaimer- I don't know what will be on the homepage when you visit that link, but most of their stuff is thought provoking), Facebook chatted, refreshed my blog stats, and sort of vaguely outlined my paper. When my friend found me there frying my brain cells in front of the screen about two hours before the meeting we were both headed to, I was awoken with a deep sense of disgust of how much time I'd wasted with the mindset that 'I had all day to do it'. So I made her give me a deadline:  700 words by the time we'd head to dinner. And then I did it- simple as that, because I'd promised I would and it really truly wasn't that hard so what had I been waiting on?

Then after the meeting, I pounded out the rest of the essay and triumphantly left the secret library reading room I'd only just discovered that day as it was closing at 1 am. (Easter Egg: if you feel like checking up on my Project 75000, you'll see what days I get work done.) I felt vindicated from the rest of the day's pointless time wasting, but it also kick started me on a productive rush I hope holds out at least until I can finish two more essays and polish up last nights and the one I wrote today.

This morning I didn't turn on my computer until I'd left the apartment after lunch. I ate a good lunch and breakfast, took a shower, went food shopping, bought and started to fill out some postcards, outlined an essay, and then wrote the whole thing and watched a few TED Talks before creating this blog post and now I'll be heading home to watch La Salle beat Kansas City in the NCAA tournament if I can find it online. So it's been awesome and fulfilling and I just hate that it takes those terrible sloth days to get me to this point.

The end of my night last night was interesting, though, as I plodded home with my heavy backpack in a strangely mixed mood of bitter euphoria and hopeful regret. The streets were empty, and the Cathedral was turned off. Normally glowing yellow against a dark blue sky, shining picturesquely over the river, it was a chilling and unnerving sight heading back to the city center without the big landmark blazingly visible. Hardly any cars were out on the streets, and I saw a chain of about 5 or 6 taxis circling each other down the road, not really stopping to see if anyone was coming.

When I arrived on my street at long last, I did that sort of dumb carpe diem thing that happens in movies but not real life and walked down the middle of the empty road, perfectly along the dotted white line. It's a one way street, so I wasn't in danger of anyone zooming up behind me, which would have happened if this were My Life The Comedy, but instead I pretended it was My Life The Inspirational Drama and started to piece together how I would describe it for you here as some turning point in my educational journey of how not to procrastinate. Then, when I was maybe 100 feet away from the door, headlights swung towards me and my heart jumped into my mouth and I darted for the curb. I made it to safety in plenty of time, obviously, and sheepishly scurried into my building.

For now, I've shoved the sloth away and done a great amount of work, but I have a feeling it'll creep back towards me when I'm not expecting it. I'll do my best to avoid it, but it's hard to say how successful I'll be.

And so it goes.