I'll start to make my thesis presentation, but then I miraculously find myself on expat forums about Cologne looking for general living and culture advice and wisdom. Then I'll attempt to finish editing my thesis, but I'll end up looking up which German dictionary I should buy. or research for my Islamic Spain paper, and end up reading the Germany section of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die (I have now moved on to read about the places in the rest of Europe as well, for the billionth time). It's an involuntary reflex, I swear.
It's not that I'm not interested in my school work. I am doing a major that I love and that interests me greatly. I'm frankly just not interested in doing any actual school WORK right now. Learning, yes. Work, no. And why is that, you may ask?
Because I am graduating in five weeks and moving to Germany for a year, that's why!!!!
Seriously, who can focus when they are facing that. It's hard. I just want it to be over because the anticipation is killing me. Not only have I already been in school for the past 18 years (if you include preschool and kindergarten, which I totally do), but I am moving on to do something that I've always dreamed of doing. I'm going to be living life in a new way, in a way that is very exciting to me, and I can't wait to start. It's like schoolwork is just getting in the way right now, a nuisance that I have to at least passably finish in order to get to the phase I want to be in.
At the same time, though, I'm a perfectionist who loves to do well. I hate doing poorly on something. I especially hate doing poorly on something when I know I could have done better. So now these two sides of me are duking it out in my head, with mixed results. I'll completely plan out how I'm going to teach one of my classes in a fit of inspiration, only to leave it alone for a while and hastily finish it the night before. I won't put much effort into one project and get an B+, but then out of guilt I'll put a lot of thought into the next one for that class and get an A. (Strangely enough, I have also completed a paper in four hours literally the day it was due and received rave reviews from the professor, while I put a lot more time and effort into another paper for the same class and professor only to get a "needs work" comment. Seriously. Life is weird.)
Basically, I go through strange bursts of energy and motivation, like my mind is saying "THIS IS YOUR LAST QUARTER, FINISH STRONG! WOOHOOOO MOTIVATION!" And then a few days later I will sit on my couch and read a favorite book when I really should finish studying for a test I have the next day. While I am admittedly not always the most on top of my schoolwork (hello, procrastination), I am usually a lot better about being on top of things and a lot less scattered than I have been these past two quarters.
Senioritis. It's real. Thankfully, it's also not a death sentence.
(I hope)
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