Burned Out Again

Scott Hardie | April 9, 2002
I feel so burned out on school again. I had three papers due today - one pushed back, one pushed forward - plus four critiques, plus about 400 pages of reading. I skipped the reading entirely, and did the critiques during the small free moments during the weekend. That left those three big papers. I tried to do them early, I really did, but procrastination got the better of me as it always had.

So yesterday was another one of those marathon homework days. Fourteen hours of writing essays for school. I stopped only for dinner at KFC and a pause to update the goo game. By 4:30 in the morning, my brain was fried. I tried to work on the third paper while my previous one printed (I had to print twenty copies), but the burn-out was too strong. I groveled to my teacher today for two extra days to get it done, as I'd done in the past to him, and he gave it. I'm actually enjoying writing these papers, which helps immensely, but time is time.

The good news is, I'm mostly done. I've got three more pages to go on this paper for Thursday, plus a three-pager due on Tuesday, plus a five-pager at the end of the semester, and revisions of two long papers that I've already written. And not one of these assignments is coming on the same day as any other. I feel relieved. If I didn't have to go to my night class in a couple of hours, I'd be in bed right now.

The real "phew!" moment of the day came when I saw the professor in charge of my senior project. The senior project was due last Wednesday, but when I went to class at 5:30, there was nobody there, and his office was empty. I finally tracked him down today and he said that the deadline was 3pm last Wednesday. I suddenly felt faint - you'd think I would be used to obstacles to graduation by now - but he assured me that it was just a misunderstanding and everything would probably be fine. The committee wouldn't even start reading them until tomorrow anyway, and he'd quietly slip mine into the stack before that time came. I couldn't have thanked him enough. Scott Hardie will graduate on time!