Kate

Admitting You Have a Problem

by chathamscholars

Okay, so I lied. Living off-campus does eventually make it more difficult to convince yourself to come to class. I’m talking your typical end-of-the-semester stubbornness multiplied by innumerable other factors. The weather, the fact that the brakes on your car are struggling to make it through the onslaught of winter, the dog curled up on your bed keeping your feet warm– you name it, and it’s an excuse to just stay in bed.

With the end of the semester nigh, I keep thinking back to a conversation I had a few months ago with some friends. We were talking about school and other various mundanities when I, in my infinite naivete, whined something about this semester being particularly difficult.

“It’s not like I have that much more work to do, or am taking more classes than usual,” was my embittered conclusion.

“Well,” said my wizened friend who had already completed her years within the higher education system, “junior year is always the hardest.”

This remark puzzled me. As I had already stated, it wasn’t as though the workload was bigger or that there were more credit hours bogging down my schedule. Sure, I was holding down two jobs, but I had done that last year as well. What was the uncommon factor? What made junior year so much more challenging than freshman or sophomore year?

I began to peg through my own personal logic formula. Yes, I lived off campus now, but in all actuality, did that make a difference? There was more space for me to find somewhere quiet to work– or noisy, depending on my mood. I have a great roommate, unlike freshman year. What could the problem be?

Then I realized I was just denying the undeniable. I am a Grade-A, finely-tuned, permanent procrastinator. If I could look on from someone else’s point of view, watching me trying to get work done would be like watching a trainwreck. It’s time to face the facts: My study habits have finally caught up with me, just like my mother and high school teachers had always warned they would.

And no one likes accepting the fact that their mother was right.

At Least Now I’ve Got A Helmet – A Junior Scholar’s Fall Musings

by chathamscholars
I check the time on the dashboard as I slam my car haphazardly into a spot on Shady. Swearing loudly to no one, I put next to no effort into caring about which direction the ‘No Parking’ sign is pointing. It’s 9:25 and far later than I would have liked to be on the first day of junior year. This is just the first of many occasions in the next few weeks that will lead me to the following conclusion: Living off campus doesn’t necessarily make it more difficult to convince yourself to get up and go to class. It does, however, make it far more difficult to be on time.
Bounding out of the car, I flout oncoming traffic and rush across the street to the small pathway that will lead me up onto campus. Sure, it was dangerous. But when being late makes you more anxious than you really care to admit to anyone, you tend to live your life a bit further on the edge than most. It’s not even that I’m running that late—but I still need to buy books, etc., and as a scholar, it’s also my duty to be almost disturbingly early for every class. It’s an unwritten rule in the non-existent handbook. You can look it up. I clutch my coffee to my chest as I half-run, half-totter in my three-inch heels. Yeah, heels on the first day of class. Now that I’ve had caffeine, I recognize what a poor choice that really was. Oh well—with home over twenty minutes away in good traffic, I’m just going to have to deal with that particular decision (and beg the post office boys for band-aids later).
Twenty minutes and almost seven hundred dollars later (you think I’m kidding), I stumble out of the bookstore in shock. I keep glancing down at the bags in my hands, giving a particularly nasty stink-eye to the French book and workbook set that made up just about half of the total cost. (I will later learn that I have bought the wrong workbook and then spend approximately half an hour metaphorically patting myself on the back for not removing the shrink-wrap.)
For the rest of the day, I enjoy the feeling of being a first-semester junior. (Mostly since I know that the euphoria will vanish instantly as soon as spring semester and tutorial planning rear their ugly heads.) It’s a great feeling—that of knowing where you stand and what to expect. As a first-year, I think I was so confused and overwhelmed that most of the time, I didn’t even know I was confused and overwhelmed. Sophomore year, I made a lot of changes to my plans and my major and had to deal with the aftermath of all of those changes. I feel as though while I still may not be the best hitter on the team—at least now I have a bat. And a helmet.