Utterly, Utterly Lost

I am so behind these days. I hate that feeling. Because of lack of time and lack of energy, I've been putting off doing five chapters of homework for my statistics class, and now it's due tomorrow morning. I did one chapter's worth last night, at about midnight, after realizing that I hadn't done the reading for my Monday night class as well as homework for that class, and hadn't studied for the exam for a Monday morning class. I've got two exams, one for statistics and one for political science on Tuesday morning. Then for Tuesday night, I have to finish reading Acts III, IV, & V for Much Ado About Nothing for English. After Tuesday it should be relatively clear sailing. Hopefully. But until I reach that point, I will be slapping myself in the forehead, kicking myself in the ass, for procrastinating. Procrastination is my ultimate foe, even more formidable than One Hundred Years of Solitude. It's something I battle almost on a daily basis with school. I don't have this problem at work -- something about being paid makes me want to do things on time. However, for school, I am always leaving things to the last minute. And the worst part is that I know I am doing this to myself and I know I will hate myself with excruciating pain later, as I spend nights burning the midnight oil trying to get assignments done on time. So tonight I will be cramming and doing majorly massive amounts of stat homework. All about standard deviations and simple random samples (one can never be too random) and the rest. So you may wonder, what have I been doing all the while I've been procrastinating? Well, I've also been skipping classes -- not more than once for each class though, but just to give myself some room to breathe. I'm not very behind in my other classes. I've also cleaned my desk and my bathroom sink (always a proud accomplishment) and decided that if the newspaper covers more portions of the carpet than it is not covering, it is time to do some cleaning. I've also read into joining the ACLU, and pondered whether I should fork up the $20 and become a card carrying ACLU member. They seem to support everything I support, although I do it in such a dormant way. A positive thing that I've been doing was filling out an application to become a volunteer at the LAC/USC county hospital. For those who do not know, the LAC/USC hospital is perhaps the largest hospital in the area, complete with a Women's and Children's building and wards and all the good stuff. I've spent about 200 hours one summer working there, shadowing pediatricians at the same time, and it was the most excellent time I've ever dreamed of having. Since California is on the verge of bankruptcy, the Drew/UCLA ER/Trauma center is going to be closed. They just don't have the funds to keep the center open -- they are severing limbs and appendages in hopes of keeping the trunk alive. The wards and other parts of the hospital will remain open, but the ER, where a majority of the poor get their primary care (it is in the rather poor area of Los Angeles), will close. Anyways, that means that there is more work for the county hospital. Most people would rate their experiences with county pretty low. And I probably would too. It is slow, crowded, noisy, too poor of an air conditioning (starting to sound like the DMV), too little beds, not enough nurses, and the corridors and such are pretty much filthy. But I really really enjoy being there. One reason is, as a person seeking a career in the health-related field, you get a tremendous amount of exposure. You just can't get this much exposure to various sorts of illnesses, injuries, characters, and diversity. How many volunteers from other hospitals get to see abcesses (which look like a miniature Mount Helen on human skin) and gun shot wounds? How many volunteers get to nail down a screaming & kicking child while he gets a suture for a laceration? Yes, the excitement runs over in this hospital. Also, you get so much exposure to germs (lovely perk) that you end up getting immunity to virtually all germs that exist in the LA County. Of course, that is after you get extremely sick for about a week, bearing the burden of having seventy million disease rapture your body all at once. But nonetheless, it is nice knowing that you'll be one of the first to get the flu. Well, that's my procrastination situation. More griping to come later, as always. Stay tuned.