So, here's a story. Yesterday, Wednesday that is, after having reassured myself that Fall Break had given me the opportunity to get a little bit ahead on schoolwork, and after having created a perfect daily & weekly schedule to help me maintain this advantaged position for as long as possible, I had planned to have dinner with most of Davidson's international students in the international lounge of the Duke residence hall. This basically meant I would get free dinner, so I made sure to spend my meal-plan money for that day stocking up on cereal in the Union (non-Davidson students: I will explain what I mean by "meal-plan money"... sometime). I then happily proceeded to Duke at 6pm, met with the international students that were there and got really excited to see them while we all waited for the food to come.
I had even been holding and sort-of playing a guitar while walking to Duke, since that guitar belonged in the international lounge and my friend Blanca, whom I met on my way there, wanted to return it. Anyway, the reason why I was holding a guitar is not important. My point is, you can get the picture; I looked, and honestly was, very happy and excited for that dinner.
Then, I saw Erik.
I don't really want to precisely narrate what happened right after I greeted Erik and sensed that he wasn't nearly as excited as I was, mainly because most of the story involves me whining around, in and out of the international lounge, trying (but failing) to find comfort in Erik's hugs and begging him to wake me up from that "nightmare"... which was, unfortunately, reality.
Long story short: Erik and I (and, by the way, Jourdan) are in the same writing class. It was that same class that we had a midterm on due this Monday, three days ago. It turns out, we had another assignment due for that class - on that Wednesday, 8pm. It was written on the syllabus. Erik hadn't noticed until a classmate texted him shortly before the international meeting started. Neither had I, until shortly after the international meeting started, which was when Erik told me.
Needless to say, I did not have dinner with the international students on that day. After seeing that the line for food was way too long, I just dashed to the library and, after announcing with desperation to another ignorant classmate that she (as well as I) would have to write 1,000 words on this freaking video in one-and-a-half hour, grabbed a seat in front of a computer and, while miserably chewing on the cereal I had gotten earlier as my new "dinner" option, started wondering how in the world I would be able to submit that essay by 8pm.
Which, of course, due to my annoying and unconquerable perfectionism, I failed at doing. Around 40 minutes before the 8pm deadline, I e-mailed the professor to ask for a 3-hour extension, explaining and apologizing for completely forgetting about the assignment since it was due 2 days after the midterm for the same class, but I never heard back from her. I ultimately wrote and submitted my essay in the class' blog at 11:00pm (I know, this took me way too long, but, as I said, perfectionism sucks, especially when your result ends up to be nowhere near perfect), but I still don't know what is going to be done with it. I feel ashamed.Moral(s) of the story:
1. THE SYLLABUS IS YOUR BIBLE. I sadly had to learn the hard way that teachers will not always remind you about assignments, as many of them assume that, since those written on the syllabus, which -ehem- you check regularly, you know exactly when they are due. I generally am this kind of regular syllabus checker, as assignments for classes usually follow a steady pace (e.g. one paper per week), but, this time, the possibility that a paper would be following the deadline of a midterm by such a short length of time was beyond my imagination.
2. If, sometime during the semester, your day's to-do list feels pretty easy to manage in your given time, check again - this is not normal! If not always, in most cases there is something you've forgotten to include in the list. The earlier you check, the least likely you are to find yourself 2 hours before the deadline of a paper you haven't yet started!
Sigh. I know, it's all my fault...
No comments:
Post a Comment