The Protagonist Lifestyle

I started writing this paper on Thursday night. By “started”, I mean I sat down in front of a blank screen and thought about what I was going to write. It is now Sunday night and I’m to this point so far. Since Thursday night I have done four loads of laundry, watched two movies, and been to three bars and a house party. I have also rearranged my living room, watched about thirteen games of football, and even invented a new sport.

I did all these things while the cursor blinked on a blank page on my computer screen. I could have skipped any one of those activities and easily written five hundred words. I mean it was a free write. I could have written about any topic in the world. Now it’s eight o’clock on Sunday night. I have a four page argumentative writing paper and a Portuguese project due in the morning and I’m hurrying to finish a five hundred-word open topic blog that I started on Thursday. I wish I could blame my drinking problem or my friends but I can’t. I’m a protagonist.

This is a problem I know a lot of other college students can relate to. Recently, my roommate, a Cape Fear Sea Dragon, told me he was going to go work on his Biology paper for a while. Twenty minutes later he knocked on my door asking if I wanted to play catch. “What about your paper, isn’t it due tomorrow?” I asked pretending to care about how he did in school. He told me it was but that he was just taking a break. As we were heading out the front door I glanced at his computer and saw exactly what I expected. His computer screen had his name, the date and a title on it. That’s it. I assume he finished the paper at some point but who knows. I’m sure he didn’t worry too much about it and, even through I have three assignments due in the near future, I’m not going to either.

That’s the thing with college students though. For three years now I have been conditioned to function on no sleep, strung out on coffee and adderall. I have seen the sun rise many times while finishing a paper or studying for a final. My parents ask me how this affects my sleep schedule. Schedule? No college student has a sleep schedule. You sleep when you can. You sleep when you don’t have a blog due at midnight, a project due a ten and another paper at eleven. When there’s no good drink specials.

So if you see me on campus tomorrow my eyes will be puffy. I’ll be exhausted. I will look horrible. I’ll be pissed off because I crammed four days worth of work into seven hours. You would think I would have learned by now. As a senior in college, a year away from a job with consequences far greater than a bad grade, I should have some grasp on time management. I don’t. I would spend this last year of school trying to get better but I know I would just wait until the last minute.