My Pretentious Procrastination Programme

Hallo!
Did you like my alliteration? Wonderful, isn’t it?

Since my CBSE Board exams are right around the corner, I feel obliged to treat you all to my studying behaviour a.k.a my procrastinating habits.

Right, so as I’ve mentioned before, I am the queen of procrastination, especially when it comes to preparing for exams. Let me now give you a brief idea of my study schedule with a day of preparation for my Social Studies (SST) exam.

I come home at around 12 after whatever exam I just gave, so I’m extremely annoyed (naturally). Now, I have to study for SST, which means A LOT of cramming, so I should probably get started immediately.

Nah, not happening. I lounge around on the sofa for half an hour, after which I’m shooed away. I then proceed to my room to waste another couple of hours reading (not my textbooks, of course), looking out of the window, eating a snack, sulking about how horribly my exam went, sleeping for a while and staring at the white walls, trying to wrest all their dark secrets.

Then, at around 3, I gather my courage and decide to do my least favourite subject, Geography, first. I pick my Geography textbook up and open to the first chapter. I read the same sentence again and again. I read the same sentence again and again. I read the same sentence again and again. I decide I’m feeling hungry, so I close the textbook and head to the kitchen.

I eat something and then go back to my room. I look at the clock. It’s 3:30 already! Oh no. I rush back to my beloved textbook, with hopes of magically remembering the entire chapter without actually having read it. No such luck. Geography manages to evade me in a way that few other subjects do. Then I force myself to pay attention and with humongous willpower, I read the first page with complete understanding. Yay!

I’m so proud of myself that I decide to reward myself with a few pages of a lovely book that I haven’t read in ages. A few pages turns out to be half the book, and I tear myself away from it to look at the clock only to see that it’s 4:15.

Good Godric. I quickly read through the next three pages, assuring myself that I will remember everything during the exam. Just to calm myself down, I repeat a particularly difficult paragraph, getting all the points correct. Overjoyed, I finish the entire chapter by 5.

After taking another short break, I start the next chapter which I know is the easiest one in the book. I read the first page, only to find that I’m bored out of my mind. I close the textbook and roam around the house, saying hi to everyone I meet. Then I go and annoy my brother for a bit, preferably by snatching the book he’s reading at the moment.

Once he’s satisfactorily annoyed, I go back to my room. I try to finish the rest of the chapter, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I close the book and put it away. I then decide to do Economics instead, since it’s a lot easier. I check the time again, and it’s 5:45.

Whoa. I immediately open my Economics textbook and start reading. I’m pleased to see that I already know most of this. I finish the first chapter quickly and start with the second. Halfway through the chapter, I start feeling hungry again, so I grab something to eat and continue studying. By 6:45, I’m done with the second chapter too, so I take another short break.

At 7, I realise that I still have 3 more chapters to go, so I hurriedly find my textbook again. I dive into the third chapter, only to find that it isn’t so easy after all. I really need to go through this one again. After a lot of effort, I’m done with it. I glance up at the clock to find that it’s already 8.

The fourth and fifth chapters turn out to be easier, so I’m done with them by 9:30, which happens to be dinnertime. After dinner, I’m in no mood to do SST, so I laze around until I go to bed at 11. Since I’m not studying till 2 in the morning, like most of my friends, I set an alarm for 6, hoping to wake up early the next day and get some studying done then. And so ends my studying for the day.

I start getting serious on the second day and by the third day, I’m almost about to cry. This is when I read some questions and I realize that I don’t know the answer to any of them. I tell myself to calm down and pray to anyone who will listen that I miraculously remember everything I’ve read during the exam. And that is the end of it.

Phew! That was one long post! I would like to continue ranting, but I think I should go study for a bit 🙂 Do you face similar struggles while preparing for exams, or do you start studying hard from the first day? Let me know!

Farewell,
The Voracious Bibliophile