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"Written at the Last Possible Second"
Now Playing: "Run" by Collective Soul
The weather here in Canada (we only have one climate) has been
gorgeous lately. Everybody is outside playing Frisbee, tanning and
barbecuing with their friends. Unfortunately, it's also exam time in
Canada, which means everybody's holed up in their rooms or in one of
those weird cubicle things they have in the library, straining their
eyes and overdosing on vending machine coffee. Of course, these two
statements contradict each other rather completely, so you astute
readers will dismiss them both as a pack of lies, and discontinue
reading this illogical and borderline incoherent column more or less
immediately. For the rest of you, here's what happened:
-I'm going to take a stand here and
some of you may not like it: I think The Simpsons has gone overboard
with celebrity guest voices. They used to have all these really cool
celebrities like Dustin Hoffman and Michelle Pfeiffer and they'd
integrate them into the plot and everything would be kosher. But in
a recent episode they had guest stars Tom Clancy and Thomas Pynchon
read ONE LINE. That's right, they flew these authors over to LA, put
them up in a hotel and paid them good money to read ONE FREAKING
LINE. And the kicker is I bet you have no idea what Tom Clancy
sounds like or who the hell Thomas Pynchon is. You illiterate
sonofabitch.
-The reason I chose to harass you and insult your intelligence with
that last "joke" is that I've been watching a lot of Simpsons in
lieu of studying for my exams. I've also been doing a lot of other
things that don't include studying in lieu of studying.
Procrastination is the heart of any good college student's routine,
and we all take it pretty seriously. For example, I have actually
elevated procrastination into its own art form. Someday I'll write
the book on procrastination. Not today, but someday. For now this
article will have to do.
-How many needless all-nighters have you pulled in your college
career? You'll have an essay due Monday, so you'll wake up Sunday
morning bright and early with the intention of going to the library,
doing your research and having the term paper done by suppertime.
But of course you never make it to the library because you wasted
the entire day smoking pot and masturbating to blurry bestiality
pictures you found on the net "by accident." Next thing you know
it's 11pm and the library is closed so your "research" consists
entirely of pulling quotes pretty much at random off of websites
("Hottest Bestiality pr0n - Clik Here!"). Sure, you'll get your
paper done before daybreak, but at what cost?
-I think Instant Messaging programs are the most
productivity-stifling programs in existence. I can't write a
three-page paper on Swan Lake (double-spaced) if my life depends on
it, but I can outdo the word count in "War and Peace" ranting about
how I can't believe Jake slept with Melissa because she's such a
dirty ho. And also I kind of liked Melissa.
-You had better believe I just compared my IM rants to the work of
Tolstoy. I should save a copy of my Instant Messenger conversations
and sell them to fools who don't know who Thomas Pynchon is. Think
of it as something like War and Peace with poorer spelling and more
emoticons.
-On average, about 10% of studying time is devoted to actual
studying, in the sense of reading, memorizing facts, highlighting
passages from the textbook so you won't be able to sell it after the
exam, etc. The other 90% of "study" time is spent calculating to an
appalling number of significant digits the absolute lowest grade you
could possibly get on the final and still pass the class. They say
kids today are bad at math but I've seen philosophy majors put
together complex formulas that would stump Will Hunting. (Not
surprisingly, they still wind up failing the class. Maybe if they
had spent a little more time studying philosophy...)
-I've seen people who always write
down their assignments and exams as due a day earlier in their daily
planners. Like, say they have a big final on Tuesday, they'll write
down that it's actually on Monday so they'll get their studying done
before the last minute. These are the same head cases who set the
clocks in their house forward 10 minutes so they won't be late. How
many times can you trick yourself before people start suspecting you
have a learning disability? Just once I'd like to see one of these
social rejects miss their exam because "they thought it was
yesterday." That'll teach them to not put off studying 'til the
night before.
-Quote of the Moment: I had a study date planned for 4pm, but was
told (via Instant Messenger, no less) that we should delay it until
6pm. When I asked why, I got the following illuminating response: "I
just need to go break up with my boyfriend again." What can I say? A
procrastinator's work is never done.
-What do girls do to procrastinate? Guys have
Xbox, sports, fast food and cars. I
don't know a single girl who enjoys any of those things. Find me a
girl who likes Halo, watching football, eating at Wendy's and
driving around until you run out of gas and I'll marry her if you
can somehow render her blind so she can't see what I look like.
Until then, I'll assume these types of girls don't exist. So what
can females do when they're looking to waste some time? My guess is
knitting.
-Note to Self: Write one more joke in this space before submitting
humor column for publishing. Aw, heck, I've still got a while before
it's due. I'll write it later.
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