Chapter 12: The Time (Freshman 15 Snippet)

Here’s a snippet from Chapter 12: The Time:

I remember the first week of college.  I remember the joy I felt after my ten o’clock class that I was able to go back to my room and do whatever I wanted.  I loved the days when I would go to a nine o’clock class and then come back and get in the bed.  College, while it is a busy time, is a distinct environment that can cause you to become extremely lazy and unproductive.  It can cause you to become ineffective in many different areas.

The first area that laziness can affect you is the quality of your schoolwork.  I am a recovering “procrastination-aholic.”  In high school, it drove my mom crazy that I would wait to the absolute last-minute before doing my work.  In college, I mastered the art of procrastination.  I discovered that I worked faster under pressure and I regularly submitted papers literally hot off the press.  I got the work done, but I knew it wasn’t my best.  I was content with the grades I received, but deep down, I knew I could do better.

I used the excuse that all the work piled up on me.  I would whine to professors that they all gave us huge projects or test on the same week, but I normally knew about the work in advance.  The stress that I put myself under resulted in a lack of quality in my work that was no one’s fault except my own.  I was the problem.  My professors rarely threw curve balls at us.  Their syllabi were normally consistent and accurate at projecting due dates.  I was just slack.

Leading up to the time around when I get to release Freshman 15, I wanted to provide you a snippet every day for 15 days at 15:00 in the afternoon.