I don’t work well under pressure. I don’t work well without the pressure either. This might just imply that I don’t work well at all.
Last Monday, I did a 15-minute ethnography presentation not having slept much the previous night. Then I thought I would rest
for a few hours and write the 10-12 page research paper on the same topic as the presentation. The paper was due Friday but I wanted to get it out of the way early to enjoy my last few days in Oxford.
I ended up going to Ben’s cookies (check that off the Oxford to do list) took a short nap, and went to dinner at Corpus. I’ve been out of money on my dining card for a long time, but some people preferred to cook this term, so I was fortunate to take advantage of that. You can also buy wine with your meal points. The weather was good, we sat outside and enjoyed ourselves. No work done that night.
Then Tuesday night was farewell dinner, mixed feelings on that. The restaurant was pretty good and I did get a vodka-martini (check off the to do list), but it lacked in some respects as well. Went out to a pub that night. No work done.
All of a sudden Wednesday I realized I still hadn’t started the work. I found 12 relevant articles on JSTOR (we were supposed to have exactly that many sources) and proceeded to make comments on them in a word file. Little did I know that Wednesday night would bring. Not only was it not productive, it was literally counter-productive. There was a party happening downstairs, people were finishing up. The amount of alcohol was truly truly impressive. Never seen so much outside a liquor store. Went to sleep at 5am. No work done. Overnight, my computer spontaneously restarted and I lost all my articles.
Thursday was the day. I woke up around 10 in the morning, not feeling too great after the aforementioned excesses. Went out, got myself a cup of coffee and a coke. Except for a quick lunch, I didn’t get up from the seat in front of my computer until 11pm when everything was written. Decided to go downstairs to check on how other people were doing. Then some folks started to come back from partying, and the drinking resumed. Went to sleep at 5am. Paper is finished.
To be continued.
