It's midnight on Sunday night of exam week. And I'm not studying, working on projects, or even sleeping. I'm blogging. Every time I need to be doing something--really need to do it--everything else suddenly looks so much more appealing. It's frustrating how many distractions seem to pop up out of nowhere, though of course they've really been there all the while. Cleaning my apartment suddenly becomes attractive, as does watching television shows I never watch, calling friends, going to go get coffee (all in the name of study breaks, of course), and getting supremely organized. Once in sixth grade I had a ten question piece of homework I had to answer, and I spent the majority of my night coloring each question a different color--dark, bold lines of color to form a box around each one, and a light shade of the same color inside the box so you could still read the answer clearly. I stayed up late just to make it so pretty.
You can imagine my devastation as an eleven-year-old when the guy with chicken scratch writing got 10/10 on his ugly homework, and my beautiful piece of art received a 9/10.
It was difficult for me to accept that I had misused my time focusing on the presentation of the work rather than the accuracy of the work itself.
It's been twelve years since that happened, and I am finally finishing school. However, I am still learning proper time management--a lesson I'm sure will never end. Balance in life seems to be more about keeping the pendulum within certain limits on each side, rather than stuck still in the middle.
