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Chapter 6: Turkey, Time Management and Caffeine

I’m still full from Thanksgiving. I went home this weekend for four days, and consumed a large amount of home cooked meals as well as a Broken Social Scene concert.

They were equally satisfying – the latter being the first show I’d attended in a month and the former being a welcome change from the cafeteria food that is slowly becoming redundant. I was able to spend a lot of time with family as well as some friends from high school. It was great to catch up with everyone; however, I’m back in my second home on Fourth Renfrew now and am in the process of getting back into the swing of things.

“Getting back into the swing of things” sure had to happen fast. I’ve got a midterm in two days and another midterm next Tuesday. Oh, and I’ve got a research paper due on Tuesday, too. This brings me to the “words of wisdom” part of this entry. As my Political Science professor so eloquently says… er, yells, “Time is ticking. TICK, TICK, TICK!”

He’s kind of scary, but he has a point. I’ve barely been in school for six weeks and already midterms are creeping up on me. Once they’re finished, it will be close to November, which means I’ll have a little over a month left in my first semester at Carleton. Tick, tick, tick…

I’ve learned a lot about time management in the last month or so, and it’s proving to be just as important as the course content I’m trying to manage. The best approach, I’ve figured out, is to never expect to be done your work. This doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to get things done in time for a deadline, but there is always going to be something you should, or, at the very least, could be reading, writing or reviewing.

I’m also a big fan of lists. I have a constantly updated To Do list on my computer, which is ordered in what is due first or the most important. For example, after writing this entry, I’m going to read the newspaper, since I have a news quiz in my journalism class tomorrow. Then I’ll study for my History midterm that’s on Friday. And if I have time, I’ll read some of 200 pages of my English novel I need to have finished by the end of the week. The list goes on into the weekend and early next week, dividing the overwhelming workload into neat, manageable chunks.

Neat and manageable they may be, but the chunks of work are still pretty hefty and can result in some late nights if you aren’t careful. That’s why this week I’ve been the best of friends with my coffee mug and thankful for the million Tim Hortons we’ve got scattered around campus. Sometimes, the only way to get through 80 pages of reading about political ideologies is to arm ourselves with a comfy chair and a cup (or three) of java.