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Procrastination III

Constitution Hill

18:13 / 16.01.03

SO. A couple of years ago i started my MA. I didn't do my dissertation in time so they gave me a years extension. I eventually started writing it 6 days before the deadline. I failed by 3 marks. Then, they gave me a year to resubmit. I'm giving it in on Monday, and have only just started to rewrite. Instead of shovelling through 13,000 words of monkey-poo on the Matrix and putting an extra 4 marks worth of shine on the thing, i'm watching 'stenders, and writing this.

procrastination is the story of my life. but i don't want it to be. I considered posting this in the Barbelquit thread, as i think it's an addiction.

Are there any ex-slackers in attendance? Where does motivation & self-discipline stem from? because i'll be buggered if i can summon any.

{alternatively, if you want to weigh in with thoughts about why an MA is useless, feel free to abate my slowly-growing-terror. Also, if you want to let me know that an MA in American Lit since 1945 will greatly enhance my life, please do so.}

23:20 / 16.01.03

Constihill old chap, I am *still* trying to write the essay I was writing when I started my Procrastinator thread - you are not alone. It is by now both tortuous and torturous, and I am fed up to the back teeth with it. However, it now has to be in on Wednesday and the thought of the seminar paper I have to write afterwards is giving me The Fear, so I am going to have to finish it... bebother and confusticate it all.

I don't really have any tips to offer, only sympathy...

00:01 / 17.01.03

I am trying to write a dissertation draft. Not the final thing. Just a draft.

I have a stickie on my desktop with running wordcount. It is an attempt to motivate myself. At the moment: 2689. We're aiming for about 6500 at the moment.

By, say, Sunday.

This should be entirely possible. I have done the reading. I have a rough plan. I also have a drink habit, a work-avoidance habit, a cinema-habit, and god knows what else. But they stop me working. Like I said.

Fuck.

Constitution Hill

00:10 / 17.01.03

Ah, The Fear. I know it well.

My gf, who is now in her 2nd semester of uni, called me last week to berate herself for leaving her essay til the last night. At the end she said - i can't believe i haven't learnt from last term.

All i learnt from my 1st term at uni was that a. yes, you can get away with last minute work and still walk away with a 2:1. b. lectures are infinitely missable. c. almost everything else comes first.

However, i have no job, no money, and [to be honest] little life at the moment, and still i've done nothing for the past 12 months.

I often wonder whether our lifelong friend procrastination is no more than an effort to slim the gene pool. In other news, this weekend i'm returning to my uni town of Aberystwyth for the first time in 7 months, after having lived there for 7 years. I'm worried that homesickness will really sink in after this visit. That or a new sense of surety that London is the place for me. Either way, with this final submission of my dissertation, it'll be the end of a chapter for me - the end of my university career. And maybe it's The Fear of finally saying goodbye to that that drives my procrastination...

What are you guys studying, btw?

16:58 / 17.01.03

I find that the fear is the only thing that makes me work, else my brain offers more interestin things to do like... cleaning, playing with the cat and sleep. Only when im genuinley scared do I do my essays. Its worryin me now that my brain has managed to ignore the fear with a fuck it attitude. 1st to 3rd person, must be that friday feelin.

Constitution Hill

17:20 / 17.01.03

my brain has managed to ignore the fear with a fuck it attitude

Once 'fuck it' has conquered The Fear, what's left to convince me to work? THE FEAR? The Horror? Oh, wait, I remember, the threat of my dad disowning me. Arghh... Shall watch TOTP & 'stenders, do a quick 30 before friends, and then pootle on until dawn.

<< In other news, i made carrot soup for the first time tonight, and my was it warming. And orange. Yum >>

22:49 / 17.01.03

All i learnt from my 1st term at uni was that a. yes, you can get away with last minute work and still walk away with a 2:1. b. lectures are infinitely missable. c. almost everything else comes first.

Which I will deal with in reverse order:

c) Possibly. Not all the time. Not in exam terms. And not on those psychotically busy days.

b) 99% of the time, yes. The ones that are entirely unrelated to your line of study, though, are usually the most interesting. If it's on what you're reading that week, you usually know it.

a) This is a blatant lie and is untrue, unless, of course, they're giving them out easily. I worked relatively hard and diligently and got a 2:2 last year, which caused me no end of grr. And my Director of Studies too, it seems. Quotation of the term so far "Well, [x], you're interested, you're doing the work, you have good ideas and you understand the course... so why you underperform at Tripos (exams) is a mystery."

I didn't think my exam technique was that bad.

I'm studying English, final year. With an optional paper on Barbelith Studies.

23:28 / 17.01.03

(I am posting this because I am moderately drunk. Port am evil)

re: exams: Paleface, I am sure you know this already, but the key thing with exams is the question. The thing to remember is, that you are answering the question... it's a game that you're playing with the examiners. So I found it helpful to ask a set of questions about the question... if you see what I mean. They want to know how you think rather than what you know (let's not get into the absurdities of this). So if you say, 'well, what is this question asking? what are the problems with this?' and basically look at it as trying to detourne the question in that way, you can come up with a coherent plan based around the question that will also allow you to show off your knowledge.

But I am one of those people who finds the concentrated atmosphere of exams helpful, so YMMV. The best advice I have is to treat it as an intellectual game.

Constihill - I'm doing an Master of Studliness in Hysterical Research (I'm going to be spending the next four weeks cross-checking names in tax registers)

Constitution Hill

00:02 / 18.01.03

This is a blatant lie and is untrue, unless, of course, they're giving them out easily.

Maybe it was just at Aber, but it seemed they were handing out good degrees with boxes of cereal.

As for exams, my problem was always with preparation. Our lady procrastination always seemd to ensure that i could only answer 2/3 of the questions set, and then there were the exams which grouped the questions so that i could only answer 1 when i should have answered 3. But no matter, my exams were few and far between, and i found few things more joyous than walking out early.

Also, with exams, i found that the questions were pitched at different levels. There'd be at least one question that screamed "you can answer me as well as you like, but i'm so easy you'll only get a 60", while others that'd be all like "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough". I had an enlightening chat with my MA supervisor about this, and apparently it was entirely intentional, though differed slightly depending who set the paper. His advice was to always go for the tough bastards, because [and his honesty was startling here] 90% of students would go for Mr. Piece of Piss and the examiners would be so bored after trawling through 100+ answers for that the variety of a different answer would perk them up = higher marks.

Unfortunately my MA was coursework only, so all that good advice was useless to me.

I'm still working [well, not working] on my dissertation, but i've found a tremendous incentive. I just downloaded the 1st episode of Buffy 7 from Kazaa, and am going to work on my diss while Ep's 2 & 3 slither down the pipe. Then more Buffy, more work, more Buffy. If i'm not done then it'll be an all-nighter, which is half-appealing, as i actually kind of miss those, though maybe that's just the nostalgia talking.

Anyhow, must go and shine up some more monkey-poo./

09:50 / 18.01.03

I did kind-of know that already, KCC, but I probably didn't apply it. Thing is, until recently, my exam technique was OK. I reckon I need to spend a tad less time planning answers in detail.

Exams as a game: yes. Hence the Last Samurai approach: it's chess, and you're playing for the endgame. Anything else, opening, middle stuff, it's all playing for that endgame. I find this helpful.

The fact I'm shit at chess doesn't really help. But basically, thanks again, I think more actually rigorous timed practice will be helpful; to quote HG Wells, "I have a mind for broad theories". I need to practice applying them...