FAIL: My Study Habits

Let's just preface this for 2.5. Walk with me. I have some pretty severe anxiety and OCD problems. I was raised super Jewy and have unrealistically high expectations for myself, none of which are remotely within the realm of possibility. I also have wicked procrastination and general slacking problems. When brought together in the worst-sounding harmony of all time, you are presented with a story strikingly similar to the one I am about to regale you with now.

Finals Week has just come to an end at my university. I spent the majority of Hell Week - the week leading up to Finals Week - convincing myself that gchatting with Meg and Liz, texting a girl I don't particularly like but keep hooking up with, and making copious portions of food I'd never eat were all valid things to be doing instead of studying. I had a shit-ton of stuff due/presentations to make during Hell Week, but only one substantial project/presentation combo due during Finals Week itself.

Of course, leave it to me to read that one assignment's details wrong. Was it due Thursday like I thought...all semester? Nope. Due Tuesday. Figured it out Monday afternoon. Epic win. And by win, I clearly mean grievous, massive fail. Great, so, definitely haven't gotten started. But it's for that class in which I'm pretty positive the professor has some awkward mutant crush on me in the same way in which I have a creepy mutant awkward crush on her so it's all good. She thinks I'm a fantastic writer, I think she could potentially be good in bed if she didn't wear strange croc-like shoes with dress pants. Look, Julia, focus. Gotta get this shit started.

Okay, after House. I'm already watching it anyway, might as well finish it. I can just pull an all-nighter at Cabell and it'll be all good.

This is the point in the story that I forgot that I had a stomach flu not more than 24 hours ago, and that the symptoms - while significantly less completely-fucking-awful than they were - were still minorly present.

So what do I do? Easy. Throw my shit in the car, drop by 7-11 and pick up two "tall boys" of Amp, and fight a 'roided-up baseball player outside of Black for a parking space relatively close to Cabell.

After about 30 minutes, the first "tall boy" of Amp is down the hatch. I'm gettin' shaky, since I'm a pretty small kid and I hadn't eaten all day anyway thanks to the stomach flu. It's not that great. I've got the sweats, I'm trudging along on this project I'm half-assing anyway, and life is just not good. I'm throwing it together at the last minute, and nothing is going right (read: no technology in Cabell works, ever) so I'm not in the best mood as it is.

2:15am passes. 3am passes. I'm halfway into the second "tall boy" and I'm relatively positive that my heart will stop before the sun rises. Oh, and for the record? Yes. I watched the sun rise from the 4th floor of Cabell. It was the least romantic EVER.

Oh, so the point of this story.

I may or may not have almost committed a hate crime. Yeah. That's right.

So I'm a Jewish lesbian, right? I'm almost positive that nothing I do can ever ever be a hate crime. By definition. Plus I'm at easily the most diverse university in Virginia. There is nothing even a little bit actually racist about me. Usually.

There was an Asian guy in the workstation cubicle across from mine. These workstations are attached, but there are walls separating them all from each other. I'm sure you know the type if you've been to a library ever. Anyway, the only reason it's important to know he was Asian is because I'm pretty sure the security guard on duty at Cab at that point in the evening hates me anyway so he would automatically suspect that I'm in a white power gang. Oh and also that I'm a raging racist. And committing a hate crime.

So I'm sitting there, 3:30am, and the dude across from me has been kicking at/jolting/generally shaking the workstations for over an hour at this point. I'm going a little nuts, and I'm also behaving like what I'd imagine someone coming down off of meth acts when they care about their university grades and have a final due in a few hours that they have no chance of completing successfully. It came to the point where I slammed my pencil down, took out my iPod headphones and untangled myself from the web of cords leading the various electronics I needed to survive the evening. I took a few ragged deep breaths and restrained myself just enough not to stomp my way around the bay of workstations over to his side.

"Look, I'm trying to finish this stupid project and you're making it impossible to draw a straight line," I managed through gritted teeth when I arrived at his station.

It was then that I noticed the signs I couldn't through peeking at him over the top of the dividers. The twitch, the tics... Ah, shit, I thought to myself. This kid has Tourette's. I blinked a few times, nodded to myself, and slinked back to my side of the bay.

I was about to jack that kid in the face. And it would have been a double-hate crime. I'm an awful person.

Oh, and the project ended up being really sub-par. I made up for it in the oral presentation part of it, but only because I'm uncomfortably funny to socially inept art school ret--I mean, students. It comes to my attention I may need to be more sensitive to those with handicaps some time sooner rather than later.

Seriously, Julia.





Fail Factor: 9.1