Hello, my name is Mandi and I am a procrastinator. The first step to wellness is admitting you have a problem, right? Well, I have a problem!! I have put off some school work and now it’s all coming due and I’m sort of freaking out. I have a speech to write and then give by Monday. I don’t even have a topic figured out yet. I’ve had the absolute worst time figuring out what to give the speech on. I’ve looked up a bunch of things only to discover it’s hard to research or there is way too much information to narrow down into a 5 minute speech or I just plain don’t like the subject after I research it. So now my outline is overdue and my speech has to be given in less than a week. I will be so SO happy to be done with this class. But I have half a dozen more speeches to give before I can be set free. *sob*
I have a research paper due on Tuesday morning and I haven’t started it yet. Partly due to laziness and partly due to being busy with other things. I don’t think it’ll be as hard as the 5 minute speech though. It will be longer (at least 5 pages long) but I already know my subject and I just have to start writing. I will be locking the kids out of my room over the weekend. I have to write several drafts before I turn in the paper and I still have some reading to do on the subject of my paper. I much prefer smaller assignments that don’t take up so much time and brain cells.
Aaand, to add to the pile of papers that need written, I was given an assignment in psychology last night that will be due next Tuesday evening that is another research paper I have to write. It’s the last thing I need right now. More researching and more papers to write. Some days being a full-time student is very overwhelming to me. I feel like the time I spend doing other ‘family’ things is bad because I should be doing school work. And it doesn’t help at all that I am a procrastinator by nature. I annoy myself! I sometimes think I have a very mild form of ADD because I can’t focus in certain areas of my life. I become easily overwhelmed when I’m faced with a large task or list of tasks that need to be accomplished. It seems like I do well in one or two areas of my life and the rest of my life gets only parts of my attention or nearly none at all. I can’t divide myself equally into the various aspects of my life in order to give each part adequate attention. It’s an illness, I’m telling ya.
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I am trying to wrap my brain around a terrible tragedy that happened locally this week. A young man in my speech class was jogging on the railroad tracks listening to his iPod when a train came along. He must have had the music up extremely high if he couldn’t hear the horn blaring or the breaks screeching when the train engineer was trying to stop. According to news reports, there were people along the sides of the tracks trying to signal to him, wave to him, trying desperately trying to get his attention but he never noticed anyone or anything. He was hit by the train and died. An 18 year old boy- gone. Just like that.
My speech teacher acknowledged his absence in class today and had to take a few minutes to keep from losing his composure. It’s so awful to think about the reasons why he wasn’t in class. And that he’d never be in class again. I was surprised to see his buddies in class. They were very quiet and subdued. I have to give them so much credit for even coming to school at all. With all of the news reports lately about Natasha Richardson’s death and Jade Goody’s death and now this boy’s sudden death- I’ve been feeling the fragility of life. How easily we could lose our child or spouse or parent or friend or- anyone. I am trying to change how I interact with my kids (not always succeeding!) and just remembering how blessed I am in this life to have what I have. And with the loss of Dave’s job and our home in NC, it would be so easy to mourn what we no longer have and cry because I’m in a state I don’t like. But I’ve seen what other families are going through and I see where they are forced to live and how low the economy has brought them and I can only rejoice in my blessings. I don’t like WV but I have a roof over my head, a weekly income that pays the important bills, family to turn to in times of need and the faith that our God will never allow us to go without our basic needs. How blessed am I.
