This is also the problem with the computer, if you ask me. The ability to have a bunch of "windows" that can be open simultaneously theoretically allows me to multi-task. But in actuality, it allows me to procrastinate in a way that tops all previous procrastination highs I've ever had. Including that time I stayed up until five minutes before that Grade 10 English class because I hadn't started my newspaper project until the last minute. But I pulled out a 97 on it anyway.
I recently found out that Gripper did the exact same thing on the exact same project. Were were talking about our procrastinating ways and, well, it's better translated.
Me: I am the worstprocrastinator!
Gripper: No, I am!
Me: No, really. I am the master procrastinator.
Gripper: I think you fail to grasp how much of a procrastinator I truly am. I am the Queen of Procrastination.
Me: Okay, but this one time, I didn't write a University term paper until three hours before the class.
Gripper: When I have a particularily large project coming up, I will lay on my bed, paint my toenails, play with the cat, read my yearbook, clean my room, sharpen every pencil I can find, do my laundry and pick cat hair off of every sweater I own before I sit down to do the project.
Me: Oh yeah? In grade 11, I completed an entire semester's worth of computer science assignments in 4 hours!
Gripper: Yawn. I had three finals in one day and didn't start studying for them until the last possible minute, which was the night before at 10 p.m. interrupted by a walk to 7-11 for a Barq's rootbeer big gulp.
Me: Please, girl! Do you remember that grade 10 english assignment we had with the novels and making a magazine about them?
Gripper: Yeah! I didn't do it until the night before. I was up until 5 in the morning.
Me: 8:30 a.m. and I only finished because my mom had to drive me to school that day.
Gripper: Wow. We're bad.
Me: You would think we would learn our lesson.
Gripper: You would?
Me: Well, you're not supposed to pull all-nighters until University. You would think that one would have done it.
Gripper: Did you learn your lesson?
Me: Nah. I got a 97.
Gripper: No way! Me too!
Me: Ha! All I learned from that little episode was that it doesn't matter how late you put something off, if you're a good enough bullshit artist, you can get away with it.
Gripper: Like, if we had gotten 70's or something...
Me: We would never get 70's!
Gripper: I know! So what's the motivation to work long and hard on a project if you know you can coast until the last minute, work crazy hard until all hours of the night, and then get a really high mark?
Me: I don't see any.
Gripper: Right!
Me: The only think that motivates me is last minute panic.
Gripper: Yeah.
Me: The thing is, high school is a poor training ground for real life. I can't get away with that shit anymore.
Gripper: Yeah. People who live in the real world have higher bullshit detectors than high school English teachers.
Me: Or History teachers. You know, Mr. Wilson would always tell our class that they couldn't get away with bullshitting him. I would blush and squirm in my seat because I had every intention of trying to bullshit him and I thought he knew it. So we'd do our reports and I would do mine at the last minute and he would write things on it like "Excellent work, Tanis, as I expect from you.", and "98 again! Congrats!", and I would look around and everybody else had like, 63's and "I told you, don't bullshit me!" scrawled on theirs. That was when I decided to become a writer.
Gripper: Why, because you figured everyone was as dumb as high school teachers?
Me: No, but I figured, I can write at the last minute and get away with it. And I can party until that last possible minute.
Gripper: But it's not working anymore.
Me: Sadly, no. I mean, it does, to a point. I mean, I have a story I should be writing right now, but I'm not. I'm doing this. And if I would just fucking do it, it would be done and it might not be fantastic, but at least it would be done for tomorrow and I could proof it before handing it in to the editor.
Gripper: But you're not.
Me: I certainly am not.
Gripper: It's a pathology.
Me: It certainly is.
I am watching: Nothing. TV sucks right now.
I am drinking: Vanilla Coke. Bad Tanis!
I am loving: The kitten. Still. Even though he wakes me up every morning at four to chew on my elbow.
I am preoccupied by: This wart on my finger that is clinging stubbornly to life, despite the bazillion wart remover patches I have been dutifully using on it. It's been here for about a year and a half and I have completely ignored it, hoping it would go away. But now that I have fingernails, I think it's more prominent. It's really fucking annoying.
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