papers papers no sleep papers blah

Despite my previous claims of the ridiculous ease of my classes, this week I've inevitably joined the ranks with millions of study panicked, anxiety stricken, over-caffeinated, and sleep-deprived college students slogging through finals week. Lame. But I'm sure we all saw that one coming.

Since I don't really have anything to blog about (unless you'd like me to post excerpts from my fascinating and skillfully rendered analysis of the use of Gothic within Victorian texts) I will tell you a fun little story about my best friend, procrastination. Ahem...

For my Women Writers class the study abroad students are required to complete a 24-hour take-home test before the end of term, which is basically just a 1-2000 word essay chosen from a few questions that they give you. I figured I'd get my game together on this one and finish it before hell week, so I picked it up yesterday around noon-ish. 24 hours to complete, no problem. That's usually the time span I allot myself to write essays anyway.

So I choose some question about women's autobiography, and head straight to the library to do research for a couple of hours. No problem. I take a quick nap around six and then get down to writing...only to look more closely at the question I've chosen and realize that I'm totally confused by it/have absolutely no idea what it's asking. So I take the phone-a-friend avenue and email the question to daddy-poo, half in hopes that he will simply reply in an email pointing out my obvious daftness and outlining the points of the essay for me. He is confused too. We validate our mutual confusedness by chalking it down to stupid British word usage. Fortunately after an insane strand of emails and furious googling on both ends, I think I've got something to go off of. Cheers dad ;-)

Now follows Shelby's process of writing an essay, punctuated in large intervals by facebooking, hot chocolate concocting, watching the pictures on my screen saver, painting my nails, and more brief naps. THIS calculated process is interrupted by a skype convo with mom and dad (to talk over my essay points) that lasts 45 minutes. It's now 3am. Mind you, I still have no problem with this situation. I work for another 3 hours, take a nap from 6-8:30am, then finish up the essay to turn it in before the 24 hours is up, approximately a few minutes after noon.

I finish the essay at 11:30, allotting myself enough time to make it over to the library to print. Of course, when I try to email the essay to myself the attachment won't send (something about the proxy server failing and trying to make my life harder). So I head to the library and try to use the internet there. Still won't send. Ughh. Now there's a problem. So I run over to the bookstore to buy a freaking zip-drive, run back to the lib, download the document from my computer, plug the drive into the school computer, ONLY TO FIND OUT that I picked the ONE computer in the whole bank of computers that didn't have Microsoft Word installed on it. You've got to be kidding me.

Log-off, run across the room to another computer, wait forever for it to log-on, plug in zip-drive, print, slow down to politely ask the woman at the front desk if I could please use her lovely stapler, run out. It's now exactly 12 and I still have to make it to the English Undergrad Office.

May I just pause here to say: when you see a kid running, especially around finals week, when you see a kid running who looks like he/she hasn't showered in several days, with bloodshot eyes, and pajama clothes peeking out from under their sweatshirt and boots...GET OUT OF THE WAY!!! Obviously this kid has a deadline, and it cannot be met when you are casually strolling and smoking along the narrow walkway, side by side with your over-weight and impossible-to-get-around bff. FREAKING MOVE!

I will un-pause to say that I couldn't bring myself to move at a full running pace while still retaining any dignity, but I did do the fastest version of the fast walk. I made it to the office, breathless, sweating, and presented my essay in what I hoped was acceptable time. I think the clear display of effort on my part redeemed the 2 minutes I believe I was late, because the secretary smiled and wrote down 12:05 'in' next to yesterdays 12:05 'out'. Relief. Maybe I shouldn't have been so worried, but I could totally see these people taking the 24-hour thing way too seriously.

It figures that I would've had printer trouble...I never have printer trouble. I carefully calculate my paper writing down to the minute, and always allot just enough time to go do a quick read-over and print it out. I laugh at kids that make lame excuses about printer troubles. But lesson learned. I guess it's just necessary to have those kind of experiences now and again to make you feel like an absolutely stereotypical college student.