Hortus Deliciarum

The project I was panicking about got turned in last night. Part of the problem, of course, was that I just couldn’t pick an “easy” topic (i.e., taking a library introduction that is written up elsewhere, say for 6th graders, and modifying it to make it relevant to me). I had to do something new – an introduction to a Visual Resources Collection, like the kind I worked in during my first MA.

What I learned from this project is simple…while I’m mostly over my perfectionist tendencies in academic work, what I do need to remember is that I cannot do a half-assed job at something. I just don’t have it in me. I have to do as well as I possibly can given the circumstances and I can’t let something go without giving it the best that I have to give at that point in time.

I hate doing things at the last minute. I am not a procrastinator. Those fabled all-nighters that people supposedly do in college? I never did one. Not once. There were a couple of times when I stayed up past midnight to finish a particularly long paper but most nights I was in bed and asleep by 10:30 or so, and I never once got less than five or six hours of sleep (without insomnia coming into play, that is), so the last-minute nature of the graduate work I currently have to do is frustrating. I passionately dislike feeling behind. The problem is that I simply don’t have enough time in the day to be caught up or ahead of the game. I honestly don’t. If I cut out all activities that give me peace and relaxation, I might be able to do that, but my son and husband would suffer, my work life would suffer, and my academic life would suffer because I so desperately need to have that calm center in order to function.

I need to become a model of hyper-organization to make this all work and while I trust that I will make it all work, part of me wonders how in the world that is going to happen. How does one fit 25 hours’ worth of living into a 24-hour day?