You mutter to yourself as you check your iCal for the seventh time:
“The semester can’t be over in a couple weeks.”

It absolutely can be, and when that day comes, you will be all done with your assignments. Right now, though, you most definitely are not. Far from it, actually.

You’re on the couch watching your fourth episode of Planet Earth, eating your fifth slice of pepper jack cheese, because that’s all you had in the fridge. While a few days ago you scarfed down turkey drumsticks and cranberry sauce as if they were about to be criminalized, you’re back in your dinky little dorm room with only last week’s groceries to comfort you.

That would be pretty sad in itself if it weren’t for the current pathetic state of your final paper. In fact, that’s much more sad, because while you can’t take your fingers off that pepper jack cheese, there’s no way that paper is getting touched this week. You know you need to do it. You’ve needed to do it for three weeks. But let’s face it, not studying for those finals you’ve got coming up is a much more pressing issue.
“How can I possibly explain the ethical implications of Wolf Blitzer’s body language when these hand towels need to be laundered?” you quietly reason to your couch cushion, since you haven’t actually moved yet. “Those hands aren’t going to towel themselves.”

You then step back and realize that that is exactly what they’ll do. You take a moment to question your intelligence, then get up to spend fifteen minutes putting things in your laundry basket that don’t need to be there. This is urgent.

Besides, you just watched an offensive number of Tastemade videos, and you absolutely need to buy cake pop. You’ve gotta get your brain food. And you’re out of pepper jack cheese.

For now, though, you’re going to read some fake Facebook news so you can at least feel fake informed. Look at this picture of Fidel Castro tie-dying T-shirts. How cute. It reminds you of when you told yourself you were going to download the class notes from Blackboard, but instead you went on Amazon to buy some adult coloring books.

But the deep self-hatred and shame you were aggressively keeping out of mind all Thanksgiving break hits you, so you decide it’s time to do your work. At Starbucks.

After congratulating yourself for realizing you’ll get there faster if you drive, you lose all of that time repeatedly circling around the block looking for parking. When you finally get inside, no tables are available. Guess you’ve got to head downtown.

At last, you sit down with your White Chocolate Mocha latte and it feels like nothing can stand in your way. Except the Christmas music they’re playing is so amateur, so you feel mandated to make your own playlist right this very moment. You can’t function in these lesser conditions. You need to listen to Mariah Carey, immediately. So you do. Three hundred times. It’s almost kind of unsettling.

Besides, you’ll be fine. It’ll all get done. Sure, it’ll be inspired by a crippling sense of doom that causes you to not sleep for a couple days, but you’ve done that before. There are still two weeks left, you’ve got time. So you’re just going to keep procrastinating.

Isn’t that why you’re reading this column?

Ian McCourt is a senior television, radio and film major who has “write a to-do list” on his to-do list. You can follow him on Twitter @OrderInMcCourt, or reach him at iwmccour@syr.edu.

Published on November 28, 2016 at 9:08 pm