Not who I used to be

Well, it is one of those Wednesdays when I hope to get a lot of work done at school and stuff like that. So I probably won't be around today. No emails, no phone calls, no blogging, etc.... If you're new, don't take it personally. If you're not new, you know the drill.

Left you something to read anyway.

(The following was originally posted on another blog on December 1st.)

Oh, I'm still a nice person. I was always a nice person who liked Star Trek and all of that. And I was always an artist, and I've been a writer since I was eleven.

But I used to be more efficient. I used to be make better use of my time.

Now I'm doing good to even know what time it is. Or even what day it is.

And the awful thing is that I think some of the problem was actually caused by going to college.

Not that I'm not glad I went to college. I like going to college. I plan to go to college again next year.

It's just that I picked up a lot of bad habits in college. Before college, I knew what was expected of me most of the time, and what I was supposed to be doing, and when I was supposed to be where. In school before college, I didn't have any problems getting things done. Everyday, I was supposed to do X amount of work. If I could do more than X amount of work in a day, I would go ahead and do it. I would finish something early, and move on to the next thing. I would get so far ahead in my work, that my parents would actually let me stay home from school once in a while. If I hadn't have gotten distracted by discovering boys, I might have really done something interesting, but that's another story.

So I had school all worked out and I was all into the whole working ahead of schedule for everything else too, until I went to college full time. And then everything became about grades and deadlines. I somehow stopped doing things when they were supposed to be done or done ahead of time, or even when I would get the most out of it. Somehow a lot of us just end up organizing our time in the order of what important things have deadlines that come first. So maybe I have math homework, but I'm not going to do the math homework because I can do that any time and I can probably catch up next week, but this week I need to study for a history exam on Friday, and I also have to read something for English. And whatever science lab work I had to do gets done at a certain time because that is when we are scheduled to be in the lab, but the rest of the homework for that class gets done here and there and I'm usually reading a paragraph or two in between classes and before lunch. We were supposed to read this chapter this week, but I didn't finish it, and we're not getting tested on it til next week, so that's okay.

Only now I can't seem to get anything done without a deadline schedule. Most everything is like math homework, and it's always here, and it can always get done later, and really no one but me will know if I didn't do it at all. The dishes can be done later. The laundry can be done later. Christmas presents must be bought at least a day before the Christmas party or it will be too late to wrap them. The bathroom can be cleaned later, but my costume must be finished before a certain event or I might as well not even go. When I have a job, I have to be there at the scheduled time, but everything else can wait.

And I never seem to get anything done at a reasonable time anymore. The laundry is not done, and I can't find anything to wear. The dishes haven't been done in a while, so now I'm afraid to go near the sink. But all of the Christmas presents I've managed to buy so far are already wrapped. The rest of the people I buy presents for are probably going to end up with gift cards at the last minute. Not because I don't want to get them something else or even because I don't have time to get them something else, but just because wandering around the mall some more won't make the perfect presents magically appear. So if I can't get them something I know they'd really like, I should get them gift cards instead. But I still have this hope that something better will occur to me, so buying the gift cards will wait until the last minute.

It's just all about the deadlines, even at Christmas.