By Candy Rendon
Reporter
Last week my tiny car was less than pleasant to look at. It was consistently grabbing attention but for all the wrong reasons. I hated that with a passion.
I love Teresa (that’s the car’s name), but its state of eye-poppiness was hazed by foggy swirls of grime and rain residue. I realized that by this time in February (the critical turning point from winter to spring), if I didn’t wash it soon, I never would.
Finally on Sunday I washed and waxed the car, and now I can clearly see out of both front and back windows, which is always important.
With it being the midpoint to the semester, I know many of us out there are like that car prior to yesterday.
We have that gross outer layer of excessive sluggishness and are in need of a quick clean-up. We decide to go out for some errands or purchase new folders and such to get involved again. Somehow we see this as motivation. At the store, we look up at the clerk while our supposed essentials move across the cash register’s conveyor belt. Our glorified pose of assured confidence shows the clerk that we mean real academic business with the current purchases.
“Oh, and please keep the children and the elderly away from me, because there is serious, life-changing flashcard studying about to take place.”
It always seems that the joke falls on our shoulders when we attempt to motivate ourselves for those detours. The slumps push us into super lazy mode, and we think that all our problems will be solved with procrastination and excuse.
Instead of actually getting any work done, we inch closer and closer to deadlines without putting any efforts to pen and paper (hey, at least I have a new highlighter). Excuses continue bombarding our peripherals, and we attract more stressors to our already full agendas.
Calm down and take a step back. Are you good? Good.
Sometimes all you need to do is roll up your sleeves and get to work. Don’t try to find that perfect opportunity to go and study (or wash your car). Take the needed time to fall off your high horse of excuses or unnecessary expenses and dust off those winter blues. Set aside your own custom set of to-dos and focus your mind for some academic action.
Go ahead and get your tushie to the library, and start studying. It sounds really aggressive, but it works. Once you get into the flow of things, the rest of your chores smooth out. Just be willing to plow through the wee hours of the morning when the need occurs; a cup of joe helps.
When you get your stuff done, you feel better about yourself, and everything that used to trip you up, like not being able to see out your car’s front window, clears up. Like Mr. Miyagi said, “wax on, wax off.” Or something like that. You know what I mean.
Candy Rendon is a film and digital media major from McGregor and is a reporter for the Lariat.
