This isn't going to be a real reasons I suck list, because no one wants to read that. That would just be depressing. I did find a notebook from senior year of high school - sophomore year of college that was mostly lame sketches but a few lame emo journal entries. One of which had a list of things I didn't like about myself. Most of them still hold true. One I thought was funny, though, was "I don't enjoy helping the homeless".
Public Policy and the Homeless was the only college course I have ever Failed. Well, it was an incomplete that turned into an F, because in order to complete it I would have had to help the homeless for like, two more hours. And journal about it.
Because I am a lazy procrastinator, I had put off finding a good spot to volunteer at, like a children's center, because a child center involved me getting a TB shot. And as I said, I am lazy, and I really don't like making phone calls or appointments. So I was stuck cramming my hours in at Glide Memorial Church. Where I scooped mashed potatoes for hours behind glass, while crackheads made one, two, three, or more trips through the line past me and the other sorry volunteers. One of the times I went, the other people in the homeless-food-tray-assembly-line were white collar office people with required community service as a team bonding activity. The guy next to me was basically Michael Scott, and I wanted to punch him. He was oh-so-well-intentioned, but he was just holding the line up and almost took out a frail old homeless woman when he slid her tray over with too much vigor.
My point being, there's really nothing wrong with not enjoying that. Okay, but my point really being that I failed a class because I couldn't overcome my fears and limitations: fear of making phone calls, fear of entering a new situation alone, my inability to journal about the hours I did actually complete right after they happened, and my inability to contact my teacher to try to work something out because of shame. Sigh. The problem, my constant problem, is that this is my constant problem. A very cyclical occurrence.
I have figured out, as any good escapist should, that procrastination is the best way to maximize your fun time. I can shove all my assignments to the back of my mind for as long as possible, lock them away in the little box where I keep things that make me sad. And then, as the deadline gets too close to possibly ignore any longer, I will bust out with work that is luckily pretty decent, though certainly not potential-fulfilling, in as little time as possible, as close to the deadline as possible. Though this ALWAYS works (okay, with one exception), it also leads to my inevitable seasonal freakouts. At some point I will have a seemingly unmanageable pile of things I've put off that I am forced to prioritize, compromise, and then bullshit. I fall into a haze of self-loathing, as I suddenly see my life from a broader perspective--as a pattern of making the same mistakes over and over again.
But then, somehow, miraculously, I get everything done.
Except helping the homeless.
Tonight I realized that I have an art history exam tomorrow morning that I haven't studied for at all; a class that I sit in the very back row of and pay minimal attention to. And the internet in our house is inexplicably not working. So I came to campus, took Ritalin, drank coffee, crammed for an hour and a half (only commencing once the clock struck midnight), and then found out that the Midterm was moved to Wednesday.
Oh my god, you guys, I started studying TWO DAYS before a test!!!! For the first time in my college career!
YYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
Now I'm stuck in Parina lounge, too cracked out to sleep. And the busses aren't running. HMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....?
(Last time I was writing a 6 page paper in the 6 hours before it was due in Parina, I took this picture because I thought it was really funny that this kid had his face so close to his computer screen. Then someone told me he has, like, a fucked up eye thing. This post should be called "Reasons I'm Going To Hell")