I'm a slacker and a scrambler.
The former causes the latter. I have a bad habit of putting things off. I'm not special in that regard, but its a habit that always puts me in an awkward situation.
I got myself a tutoring gig at GradePotential, a sort of third-party liaison that connects tutors with prospective students in need of proper tutelage. Most people don't need tutors for English (even though they do), so I was called upon for my "expertise" in economics.
I was to meet my student on a Saturday morning and since economics isn't really my area of expertise, I was going to do a little studying so that I could do a little teaching. I planned to research the subject during the week, but I put it off until Friday.
I planned to do it right after work, but I put it off until night.
I planned to do it right after dinner, but my older brother started watching a pretty interesting Korean drama called "My Princess," so I decided to put it off after a couple episodes.
I tried accessing the online textbook but server maintenance from 12:00AM-4:00AM forced me to put it off until after a couple hours of sleep.
Since my meeting was at 10:00AM, I wanted at least a couple hours to study, so I set my alarm at 7:30.
Of course, since I went to bed at 3:00 in the morning, 7:30 was probably too optimistic.
So began a long course of nodding on and off at ten-minute intervals for an hour. I finally got up and read the two chapters I was supposed to review with my student.
Feeling confident that I had grasped enough of the material to wing my way through it, I drove off to UCI to do some tutoring.
As soon as I reached the school, my student calls me and says that an emergency has come up and that the meeting is canceled.
Did I just get bailed out, or did she?
I was going to come in and tutor her with one hour's worth of reading, an extreme disservice in my opinion. But she cancels a meeting and makes me waste 25 miles of gas, hours of sleep, and some piece of mind.
How many times have I scrambled only to have tests pushed back or deadlines extended?
Too many to count, and truthfully, this is the kind of shit that enables me to continue slacking and scrambling.
