1st semester of grad school almost complete!

This weekend was full of homework and even fuller of avoiding homework :) I had to do a massive amounts of work on my unit and plan for my stimulated teaching today. Let's just say had I actually paced myself with this unit, it wouldn't have been so bad, but my procrastinating ways got the best of me (and I had been doing so well with the whole keeping myself ahead of the game thing). I had three lessons to do, two lessons to correct, a unit rationale to write, a pre-test, a post-test, worksheets, assignments, and so on and so forth... blah blah blah. I found myself often doing everything BUT working on my unit: going to the movies, cleaning, doing laundry, going for a run, lunch with my parents, orientation at AE, watching the boys, etc.

Even though I procrastinated a LOT this weekend, I did manage to successfully get my unit completed last night and then this morning I worked with a fury to make all of the copies needed for my stimulated teaching

For my stimulated teaching, I did a lesson on existentialism. I had my "students" do part of a webquest, then I did a prezi presentation (a pretty awesome one if I do say so myself), and then began The Stranger with them. At first I know I said waaaay too many "uh"s but I got the hang of it again eventually. I think overall it went well and I am REALLY glad that this semester is almost over. I just have a behavior project to do, some computer work, and two tests and I am DONE until August 24th. Summer break, here I come!

How to procrastinate

I found this while going through old stuff on my computer (its kind of long but a hoot, it was published in the Meredith Herold). So just for funsies.....

Mark Twain once said, “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” These profound words encompass a philosophy that I like to model my life after. Most people look upon procrastination unfavorably; however, procrastination can actually be quite a wonderful thing. Some of the best memories I have are ones that occurred when I was procrastinating. If one were to examine closely procrastinators, he or she would discover that there are really two types of procrastinators: those who procrastinate because they just do not feel like doing the task at hand and those who procrastinate in order to get other things done. I prefer to think that I am of the second breed, with only the occasional instance of the first breed sneaking in here and there.

Imagine with me a typical night where you have an overload of homework. Maybe this does not happen to you; maybe you are on top of your game and never procrastinate. For those of you who do, you have a paper due tomorrow and a test to study for. You sit down, fully intending to start right away on your paper and move gracefully into the paper writing, but wait! you realize that something just isn’t right about your desk. This brings us to our first stage: adjusting the environment.

So you have just realized that there is something wrong and unworkable with your desk. You have papers strewn everywhere, your books are not put away and stacked all over the place, and you have a sizable stack of dishes piling up on the corner. Who could possibly work with such clutter? Then the adjusting of the environment begins. To work efficiently, you must have an environment conducive to be productive, thus you must clean up your desk. This cleaning cannot just be a cursory clean. The cleaning involves making piles, reorganizing, and rediscovering all the junk at the back of your desk drawer that you forgot was there. After you do a thorough cleansing of all the clutter, junk, and general disorganization of your desk, then there is the inevitable: “Well, my desk is clean, might as well continue with the rest of the room!” And so the cleaning of the rest of your room commences. Now I could continue with full detail on the process of cleaning up the rest of your room, but for time’s sake, I am going to leave that up to your imagination.

Now that your desk (and room) is finally clean and conducive for work, you finally settle in to write that paper and study for that test. Since writing a paper automatically means that you must be on your computer, you might as well check your email so there will be no more distractions detaining you from your paper writing and studying. This brings us to the next stage: email, networking, and catching-up.

In this email, networking, and catching-up stage, there are many smaller, simpler steps. This stage can actually get quite involved and may take several hours. It starts out by simply checking your email. In your inbox, you will most assuredly find a stockpile of emails that you have meant to respond to but just have not had the chance to. Therefore, the email responding begins. This can take up quite a bit of time depending upon how long you have let those emails sit in your inbox. When you are almost done with the email, you realize that there is a notification from Facebook, and thus, the next smaller step of the larger email, networking, and catching-up stage commences: Facebooking. Now Facebooking is really a subset of the networking part of the email, networking, and catching- up stage, but currently, it really deserves its own title. It starts out by innocently logging on to Facebook in order to attend to whatever the notification was about, but it ends up getting more and more involved as you begin to see new and interesting things. Your friend that you haven’t seen or talked to since high school just posted new pictures of her cat. Your ex-boyfriend just changed his status to “in a relationship” with that cheap girl he always used to hang out with. Your friends have been having a wall-to-wall conversation of epic proportions, and you just HAVE to know what they have been saying. Thus, the Facebooking continues in a like manner for at least an hour. The final smaller step of this stage involves catching up, which could be a subset of the Facebooking step, but it can also branch out into a reading of a favored blog, a “quick glance” at your favorite news site, and the like. Admittedly, this process could get quite involved and probably needs no further explanation.

Now that much time has passed, and you really need to start working on your paper, you turn off your wireless in an attempt to no longer be distracted by the wiles of the Internet. Then you realize that you have no clean clothes to wear tomorrow. Since procrastination is a lifestyle and not a casual occurrence, it has seeped its way into every area of your life, including your laundry. Thus, you enter the next stage in the art of procrastination: the everything-I-should-have-done-a-long-time-ago stage.

The everything-I-should-have-done-a-long-time-ago stage is actually quite self-explanatory and probably needs no explanation from me. This is a catchall stage that includes a laundry list of possibilities (no pun intended): laundry, calling back your mother, filling out that application, searching for a job, editing a friend’s paper, and the list goes on. These tasks can no longer be ignored and must be completed because they have been put off for far too long. So in favor of putting off that paper and studying that you have so successfully been putting off all night, you complete your to-do list.

Once the everything-I-should-have-done-a-long-time-ago stage is complete, hours later of course, you are now finally, and that means finally, ready to start your paper officially. You bunker down in your clean room, with your wireless turned off, laundry done, and the daunting list of to-dos finally complete and with one quick glance at the clock, you realize, it is now 3:30 in the morning and you have class at 9:00. Oh well, guess that paper will just have to wait until tomorrow.

To come tomorrow: an update on grad school.

Wednesdays and life decisions

,Wednesdays are usually horrible days for me. I have class from 9 in the morning till 8 at night, with only two one-hour breaks (which aren't really worth ANYTHING!). Usually during the 10 o'clock hour I sit in the science and math building and do homework that I have procrastinated on doing. Recently during my 2 o'clock hour break, I have been going home to let my sweet dog out and give her a break from her kennel. Luckily my roommate has more time available on Wednesdays than I do and is very nice in that she lets Meredith out to play while she is home so Meredith isn't in her kennel the whole time I am not there. Basically, my brain is going on auto-pilot for 11 hours straight, which can be very exhausting.

I find myself procrastinating a lot lately, and I haven't been able to pin down WHY I am such a horrible procrastinator until this morning. I think that I have been putting things off (more so than usual) lately because I am in the mentality that if I push it off, things wont happen. Now I know that this sounds like a "Duh Hilary, if you don't do something, of course it wont happen!" but I mean in the sense that if I put off figuring my life out, then maybe I will have time to be a kid for just a little bit longer. Growing up is a scary thing to do. I cant believe that in less than 2 months, I will no longer have school to fall back on. Every spring in my life until now, I have always known that after summer is over, it is back to the land of school. My life has been planned and relatively predictable. My life is wide open now. I am supposed to be looking for a job, but the whole job search thing is NOT easy. Let's begin with the current economic state of our country (strike one): EVERYONE is looking for a job. The economy sucks and because the economy sucks, I am going to suffer. Strike two: I have no idea what kind of job I want! Its hard to search for a job if you don't even know the KIND of job that you want! Strike three: location, location, location. I have no idea where I should be looking (coupled with the idea that I don't know what I am looking for, come on! Is this some sort of cruel cosmic joke?). I would kind of like to stay in this area, yet I wont be able to afford staying in this area to search for a job without a job to fund the job search (confused yet?). My family is currently near Beaufort, but really what jobs are available in Carteret County? But then there is a possibility that they are moving to the Louisville KY area. So I have a wide range of possibilities to work with, but I need a narrowing down. I need decisions. I need answers.

So basically, that is what is making my life so complicated right now. I want to be a kid and have no responsibilities, but reality is rearing its ugly head and I am thinking that growing up is in my very near future.