2:00 A.M. finds me in front of my run down glowing laptop screen yet again. I’m waiting for inspiration for a large-part-of-my-grade essay. My parents, who don’t know that I am still up at this unforsaken hour, are asleep in their beds just feet away from my room, sleeping away to the daylight: they don’t wait for the final moment to get stuff done. I take huge chugs of Mountain Dew Baja Blast mixed with Red Bull from a paper cup; it’s the sweet nectar from the Gods of Procrastination Paper Writing. Baja Bull, as I called it, made a sweet taste of sourness in my mouth and the smell of straight up sugar in my nose after one quick slurp from the cup. No, make that the super sweet nectar of the Gods of Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Liver Disease all in one drink. That drink reminds me that I’ve sentenced my poor hopeless self to another unnecessary all-nighter. I have some ideas but lesser time like a dying man in the hospital. Procrastination kills people without anyone knowing it, sneaking up on you with you never knowing it. It kills people unknowingly willingly and physically with a dash of mentally. The blinking laptop screen cursor on an empty Word document was the high school version of death in your eyes. My parents would scold me how technology wasn’t there for them when they were in high school so I should feel lucky, yet I don’t. To me I feel like it makes it worst. However, for me it was, in many odd ways, the same old problem. With very early drafts of my paper
The article written by Timothy D. Snyder in 2010 titled, “Why Laptops in Class Are Distracting America’s Future Workforce” is a persuasive article. His purpose in writing this article was to persuade professors to ban laptops in the classroom because he feels they are a distraction. Snyder’s arguments against the use of laptops in classrooms are convincing, but he lacks evidence to support his stance and he uses emotionally charge wording to sway the reader.
Soon, I discovered a method to avoid the potential of feeling insubstantial, if only for a few more hours or days. Thus, allow me to introduce you to an old friend, procrastination. My way of thinking soon became, “If I’m not going to get an A, then why even put the effort in?” and consequently, innumerable assignments were put off until five in the morning where it would be due in two hours or it would never reach my teacher’s hands at all. I’m sure most teachers believed the cause to be laziness or a lack of ambition, however I strongly believe that if they’d known the constant stress, self-doubt, and exhaustion that I
“Mr. Josten, Mr. Josten!” yelled one of the eighth graders from my current math class in Crescent Middle School. I figured it would be another out of context question, as that was the norm for Andrew. Andrew had always seemed to be the one who tried his hardest, but could not focus on his schoolwork, or anything for that matter. I acknowledged his raised hand to hear, “what would happen if someone figured out how to pass things through time?” I figured since there was a small amount of time left in the class period, I could answer his question thoroughly since I majored in both math and science. “Well Andrew, if I had to guess I would say that someone would receive that object unexpectedly in a different time period. However, if someone creates
In the section titled The Dumbest Generation, “Digital Nation” lays out a haunting narrative describing technology’s negative impact on students today. This section draws from an interview with Mark Bauerlein, a professor and author of book titled “The Dumbest Generation.” Bauerlein claims that reading, writing and math skills of students have all already began to deteriorate. It seems that constant interruption and attempts to multitask are at the heart of this deterioration. I received my first smart phone just before the beginning of this semester, from my own experience I can only agree with the assertion that technology puts a damper on the educational experience. The issue does not come with the technology itself, rather, the desire for constant connection distracts from the learning experience. As the first generation of persons who grew up with technology become parents, I hope they can teach their children the skill of moderation and the importance of education – skills often not taught to kids today by their parents born before the technology boom. These ideas will solve the deterioration of reading, writing, and math that Bauerlein speaks
A tall robust boy with dark hair and yellow eyes entered Ellingburg middle school school at exactly 7:55 on september the 18th, it was the second day of school. His big build is easy to locate in the rush of teens. There is a tap on his elbow he looks sideways, at a medium sized boy, something changes in his eyes. Jack is short compared to Sebastian. Jack is a skinny boy with long legs, his dark hair hanging loosely over his dark brown eyes. A loud bell rang and Jack grabbed Sebastian's arm. Sebastian froze for a second and then ran. Sebastian knows Jack just thinks of him as a friend, but it is different for him, he does not know if Jack knows.
Don Marquis, a famed humorist, journalist, and playwright remarked: “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” If that is so, then I must have been a prodigy. Transitioning to a pristine and more work-driven environment, however, forced me to pay more mind to my grades.
Time flies. I will soon finish high school and move to college. The first semester of senior year is the most important period during my life, but I still have a Dragon I need to beat. The Dragon is called Procrastination. He has troubled me for my whole life, and I have never killed him before. During my senior year, I have to try to combat him, beat him, and destroy him.
“There is a bad side to procrastination, though, the bacteria kind, the one that if you don't clean up quickly, it will spread and fast. It gets to a point where you start seeing it in your dreams, piles upon piles of paper gliding across the room. You start to feel a shiver down your back, while you hear your teacher's voice in the background. Next thing you know, you have twenty-four piles touching the ceiling. It also may be contagious for whoever you may be around for an extended period of
Some researchers argue that the amount of time we spend on the internet has disenabled us from being able to the “deep mental connections that form when we read deeply….” (Carr 575). Some other personal anecdotes suggest that technology has lessened our ability to focus. For example, Carr includes the story of Bruce Friedman who confesses that he has “almost completely lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article” whether on the web or in print (Carr 574). If such hypotheses are true, than removing, or at least limiting, technology in the classroom might be beneficial to cadets, so that there can be an environment where we can learn without a world of
Simon woke to a screeching in his ears. It was all he had been able to hear for the past week. His head ached as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He yawned, eyed his now useless alarm clock, and realized he had over-slept. Rushing to get dressed, he read the notes his mother had left for him--reminding him to eat breakfast and empty out the dishwasher--before grabbing a poptart and running to school. As he ran, he noticed he was getting a call from Diana. He rejected it and continued his path to Greenburrow High School.
Writing has always been a part of who I am and who I want to be. One of my first and favorite childhood memories in school was a classroom book writing project. Ever since I could write my name, I have kept a journal. In school, I always did well in English and thought I knew quiet a lot about it. However, since taking English Composition and Rhetoric this semester, I have learned that I did not know nearly as much as I thought I did.
Attention Getter: So I’m pretty sure everyone here has had an important assignment to complete before like a project or essay. And most of us usually plan it out where we do a portion of it every day. For example, something like this chart here. But then the next thing you know, the deadline is fast approaching and you still haven’t come close to completing your assignment. And we end up somewhere like this. Well, I believe that we can all relate to this and we have all done this to ourselves before. I’m talking about procrastination.
With many distractions around us, students across the nation struggle with procrastination daily and it is on an upper spiral. Both men and women students are struggling with putting things off such as work, school, and tasks at home or in their dorms. Unfortunately, 20 percent of males and females are labeled as chronic procrastinators in the United States (Ferrari). Those who are known as “procrastinators” are not born this way, however, their upbringing is what creates this habit. Parents that have high expectations counteract the want to complete tasks among young adults. This is because demanding parents prevent children’s ability of development that allows them to regulate responsibilities (Marano). On the other hand, there are several different types of procrastination according to J. Ferrari, Ph.D. One type is known as the arousal type; this includes people who wait to do homework or tasks until the last minute because they enjoy working quickly under pressure.
“I’ll stop procrastinating…Tomorrow.” This is a mindset that is possessed by a majority of students today. Although putting off writing that English paper until the night before it is due may not seem like a big deal, it has many harmful effects. In fact, what better topic is there for that English paper? Very few are spared from the epidemic known as procrastination. Even less overcome this issue. In order to successfully defeat procrastination, we must first understand it.
Have you ever had an essay due in three weeks and thought to yourself, “I’ve got time. I’ll just do it later”? Does staying up studying for an exam until 3 am in the morning sound familiar? How about running to class because you were working on a project until the very last second? If any of these unfortunate situations sound relatively familiar, you have endured the horrendous event of procrastination at some point of your jam-packed life. The one secret that nobody is enforcing on your young life is the extreme power of time management. In Chapter 5, the topics we address are as follows: