Abroad in Baltimore #25
Crash Course
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Post spring break, only one thing occupies a student’s thoughts: Summer. With things heating up both inside and outside school, students of all ages undergo a unique chemical change that limits their ability to think about anything else.
Unlike some of my friends who spent their break on trips out of the state, my spring break was largely spent catching up with myself. It was glorious. I did several loads of laundry, washed my sheets, ran some errands, and best of all, slept in. A lot. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that this was one of the most relaxing weeks in recent memory.
But when the party is well and truly over, and the homework becomes impossible to ignore, we students must climb down from our clouds and remain on earth for a month or so longer. One of the forgotten laws of physics states that a student at rest will remain at rest until an external force acts upon it. In my case, this external force was homework.
I won’t lie, I didn’t look at homework over break. I needed a true break and boy did I get one. The only trouble was that I put myself in a bit of a tight spot before school starts again. Luckily, as this is my third year of university and my sixteenth year of education in general, I am no stranger to weathering the consequences of procrastination. Here’s my crash course:
First thing’s first. If you’re going to procrastinate, it’s important to know what you’re doing. The first step is always to triage. Basically, you’ve got to figure out what’s due first and what requires the most work, then order your assignments from highest to lowest priority. Due date takes precedence of course, but if you have an especially large project, you will want to break it up into more manageable pieces so you’re not caught off guard when it takes more time than something else.
With art especially, you need time. Even if it’s just a few hours apart, breaking up a project and getting some time in between makes things just a bit more manageable. Once you’ve sorted through the worst of it, now comes the hardest part. Actually doing it. I find that I work better as a sprinter than as a long distance runner so doing work in short but intense bursts with a few minutes of mental breaks in between is a lot more productive than trying to run a marathon.
It’s a rough awakening at first, I find it’s better to rip the band-aid off and get back in the swing of things. Amidst all the stress and work and general artistic angst, I sometimes forget how fun class can be. From learning about post-modern architecture to presenting my latest website design, there are more than enough moments that make all the hard work worthwhile.