Blogcrastination

So, every semester, we lucky education program volunteers get to fill out a lengthy report documenting all the things that we've done with our schools, students, and every single class that pertain to our Peace Corps service. I regret to say that I really don't feel, one semester into this thing, as though I've done a whole lot. I may have minimally impacted our classroom management strategies for the better with one partner, and I've contributed some handmade materials, and the occasional use of technology to get the kids' attention, but there's been nothing earth-shattering... or earth-tremoring... or earth-slightly-wiggling... or even school wiggling, for that matter.

The fact remains, though, that however minimal this report will ultimately have to be to document my limited achievements here, I don't feel like doing it. I sometimes worry that I forgot to pack my motivation to come to Moldova, when I start putting off things like crafty classroom materials or Christmas cards, but a lack of desire to do work that I don't deem rewarding or enjoyable, or meaningful, or even sometimes just things that seem overwhelming, regardless of how great they may be... well, that's nothing new.


I thought (as of this morning) that I still had two days to complete this thing, but I actually got an email this afternoon that said it's due tomorrow, causing me to sugar myself up with junk food in anticipation of a really late night of typing and clicking away into the wee hours of the morning... I was braced, ready, motivated, I have Christmas music playing, water bottle full, and (of course) the cat curled up on my lap. That's when the real bad news struck...

I got an email from my program manager stating that enough volunteers had replied to her previous message to say that they hadn't known this was due tomorrow that she.....

Extended.

The.

Deadline.

No!!!!

There goes the pressure I work so well under. Now I may well be in trouble!

If any of my college professors are reading this, you're probably now recalling every assignment I turned in to you within 20 seconds of the deadline, or perhaps even a few times when things that were assigned without deadlines arrived to you just moments before the end of the grading period. If my friends are reading this, you're thinking of me camping out in the library for all-nighters during the week when end of semester projects were due or IMing you trying to keep myself awake until I'd finished just one more page of something. My poor mother's reading this and thinking of the times during my student teaching when the living room was lit up and my computer keys were a clicking until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I was polishing up lesson plans at the counter while I ate breakfast.

It's not that I don't think these things are important or worth devoting my efforts to... It's simply that I never seem to muster up the necessary motivation to do them well until they're coupled with an obscenely narrow time-frame.

In other instances like this one, I've filled my procrastination time with other useful projects, but since the scope of my world's still just a bit on the narrow side here and I can't pack for winter vacation until the family's washing machine's fixed and I have some clean underwear, I figured I'd give up just a few minutes to seeking out anyone reading up on my Peace Corps experience in hopes that you'll all say a little prayer that the deadline inches its way back up to tomorrow by nightfall or that I am, by some other means, struck with a bout of compulsion to complete paperwork.

Okay, now that I've hopefully got at least somebody out there rooting for my completion of this report, I'm going to crank the Christmas music back up and type 'til my eyelids are heavy.

I promise to minimize my Facebook, Free Cell, and Pinterest breaks, but I can't eliminate them, or I'll take even more of the pressure off myself. Can't have that. I really do work best under unreasonable pressure.