The Elephant in the Room: Musings on being a trash person

On Saturday, I went to the gym (a feat for a Saturday before noon, let me tell you) and intended to shower and then go to the library to get some work done. I sat down in the sad fluorescent light and probably spent about half of the time that I was there looking out the window. I took out my books and everything and laid them all out to trick the people around me into thinking that productivity was occurring, but in actuality, my mind was not on pronominal verbs: It was on the sunny day outside. All in all, I lasted about 20 minutes and then walked right out and promptly ate a bunch of cookies that my roommate’s grandma had made. Shoutout to Judy Bittens; please adopt me as your granddaughter.

On Sunday, I had a very specific plan to get up, get my life together and work before the light of day faded once more. However, I was tricked into forgoing my responsibilities and instead enjoying the beautiful spring-like day in February. After getting back from hiking around in the snow and mud in the Fells, I told myself that I was going to finally get some stuff done. That was before my two-hour nap. I had my fingers crossed that the next day, I would be able to muster enough productivity to start the projects that I had looming in a week and a half. We all have that one killer week with a French exam, followed by a film analysis assignment, followed by a statistical profile and essay, followed by another exam, all one right after another. Every day I see the assignments in my calendar get a day closer, and every day I seem to tell myself that if I really work hard tomorrow, I’ll get it all done in time.

The reality of the situation is unfortunate: that I will be in the library for the entire week during the crunch period. I know that, and I foresee that as I write this article, and yet I am still allowing that panic to manifest itself later rather than taking care of it now and getting a head start. I tell a lot of stories about myself being an unproductive trash person, but I am not the only one. Even my suitemate, whom everyone believes to be the most together woman on the planet, has somehow managed to watch all five "Twilight" movies in the past two days. Another suitemate finally rolled out of bed at 4:45 p.m. My roommate once almost slept through a final at 3 p.m. We are all thriving, and really, I promise we’re doing our best. I think we all need to learn how to balance more. I’m not sure what the mental block is between seeing the obscene amount of deadlines that all pile up on top of each other and the ability to get started, but just know that you’re not the only one playing Mario Kart instead of starting that looming essay.