Procrastination pays off

I had to do a Lit presentation today. I had the thing mostly written, but this morning before school realized that it had no organization whatsoever and was just generally terrible.

The project was to pick a poem relating to the book we just finished reading, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (oh how I love that book), and talk about how it relates thematically. It was a five-minute presentation, including the time we took to read the poem aloud.

I worked on it throughout the day and finished it during the class prior to Lit. I whispered the whole thing once through, and then went to class.

I was SO NERVOUS. Lit is probably the class that I stress about the most, because I always feel like I have no idea what I'm talking about. I sat through two of my classmates' presentation and tried to discreetly review my notes, but couldn't bring myself to totally ignore what they were saying.

Then it was my turn.

I started to freak out a little bit as I handed out copies of my poem, "It Was All Very Tidy" by Robert Graves. I made it through my introduction, but my heart started POUNDING as I began to panic about my unpreparedness. So when I started to read my poem, I read it ridiculously slowly. I figured that the points I would lose for reading my poem too slowly would be fewer than the points I would lose for being completely incoherent over the course of the entire presentation.

Reading slowly calmed me down, so I was fine for the rest of the presentation, even though I still had basically no clue what I was talking about. I threw in random references to the book that came to my head as I was speaking, but afterwards I thought I had done terribly.

I sat down. I can't even imagine how red my face had been.

My teacher looked over at me and said "I thought the way you read your poem was very effective...almost creepy, the way you went really slowly. It worked really well."

My classmates chimed in, agreeing with her, and telling me how well I had read the poem.

In the hallway after class, someone came up to me and told me they were impressed by how well-organized my presentation was.

Moral of the story: Have a panic attack in the middle of the presentation after not rehearsing, then throw in random facts whenever you feel like it. And people will think you are smart.

Math is hard.

I have used two full erasers on math today.

I am still nowhere near ready for my trimester final on Tuesday.

I still have no topic for my Lit presentation.

BUT! Tomorrow I am going to see The Cherry Orchard in the city! And it will be fun! And I am excited!

And the Lit presentation is on a book I am in love with, by an author I am in love with! Which you should read, if you haven't yet: The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro.

And I can sort of do integrals!

In love

With my IB Lit paper topic.

I love it.

I'm actually enjoying writing a paper at midnight the night before it's due.*

The unfortunate consequence of this is that it is taking forever to write, for some reason. I stop and think waaaay more often than when I'm writing about topics I hate.


*If you want to go all technical, it's a day and a half after it was due. Because it was due on Monday. Which was a snow day. And we have no class on Tuesdays.

You know you go to nerd school when...

You have a snow day, and all everyone is talking about on facebook is how they now have time to write their IB Lit papers.

And then you talk about meeting to study for chemistry on the snow day with a friend.

I love my school.

Cleaning

It's both a blessing and a curse how cleaning can allow me to put off homework.

I admit that my room needed to be cleaned, but I also reorganized my bookshelves and cleaned out my closet, including the three giant bags of sheet music left over from when I played the cello.

I did not write my "statement of intent" for our Lit pastiche (which was supposed to be done tonight because my group is coming over to rehearse. We're doing "The Lottery" in the style of Chekhov. It's actually really funny. But anyway. I was supposed to take the notes prepared by a group member and turn them into an essay. And memorize my lines.

Neither have been done.

But my room is clean.

No joke.

I fell asleep reading MY OWN ESSAY.

You know your school is too intense when...

1. You can't carry your backpack
2. You consider carrying your backpack down a flight of stairs exercise.
3. You never know the weather because you don't have time to go outside.
4. Every day is one of "those days"
5. ALL your schoolmates' away messages say "working" or "way too much work to do"
6. You have dreams about sleeping (sad, but it's happened)
7. You don't have time to do work for the classes you like, but know you have an A in
8. Every single assignment makes you want to cry
9. You have tried to do homework while crying/eating/sleeping/showering (once I needed to memorize something so I tape-recorded it and played it in the shower)
10. You spend weekends doing homework
11. You can't remember the last time you went out on a weeknight
12. The idea of having to go out on a weeknight makes you want to fall asleep
13. You have fallen asleep while standing up/eating/showering/etc.

I'm too tired to think of any more.

I've started to realize that I have absolutely no talent for titling my posts. Take, for instance, these posts: [1] [2]. I gave them their titles intending to mention them in the posts, but I never got around to it.

Which is an entirely different issues. I often mean to say something in particular in my post, then realize halfway through that there's something else that makes more sense.

Whatever. I have chem and math homework to do.