The last great procrastinator

Right now my brain is like mush and I am stress eating to beat the band. If you are wondering what exactly has me in this state then sit yourself down and I will try and give you the short version.
A few months ago I was offered a position on the social care panel at work. Not totally out of the blue given that I had applied for it and interviewed for it and the whole shebang. At the same time I was asked to a short course on management and I thought why not, future planner that I am. When I turned up at the course I realised it came with a QQI 6( the new fetac ) award and I thought great, that will look lovely on my CV. We got details of the assignments we would complete at the end but I decided not to worry about those because really it was ages away. After two days of the course we had 6 weeks of online learning and that was fine. I completed my learner record as I went along like a good little student. Then we had the last day (Mid April) and we went through the assignments in detail but we were told they didn't have to be until May 26th I had been a bit panicked about what I could possibly write for the main assignment but I had a eureka moment on the final day and that lifted a weight off my shoulders. . So naturally, once  day 3 was over, I brought the folder home and squeezed it on to my bookshelf and that's where it remained.

As each day off ticked by and I didn't open the folder ( opting instead to nap, read or watch bad tv). I knew something had to be done. At this point I maybe regretted doing the course but I knew I would be in for some hassle in work if I turned in no assignments.  Being ever so forward thinking I booked a few days off work and designated them my time to do assignments. This meant I did not give the assignments a second thought until those days off rolled round.

So here I am. On this glorious week off and the clock is ticking ever so ominously. Day one was Monday gone, a day of torrential rain and not much else. I got out of bed early with great intentions and began researching my assignments. I got maybe two hours done before my boyfriend suggested we go to the shop and then never returned to my computer. I did eat snacks, read books and watch bad tv but I did not type so much as a single word.

Roll on day two. Yesterday. My boyfriend (who works from home) went out to a meeting earlyish yesterday  and so I was left with no excuse or interruptions. after hoovering the apartment, baking bread and having breakfast I got to work. I managed to throw together a rough draft of assignment no 2 which was the big one. This took me about 6 hours which were punctuated with frequent checks of my phone, facebook, my email and of course the word count. I had the attention span of a gnat. Apparently after some time with not a whole lot of use in the academic sector, my brain has gotten pretty damn rusty. In good news I have a draft completed. In bad news I am not certain this draft is in any form of coherent English and I kind of forgot to eat a meal while stuck to my computer. The next step will be to re read and totally deconstruct said assignment until it resembles something like what is actually required for me to pass. For now though I will be content with having 1500 words of something written.

This brings us to today. My poor frazzled brain is worn out. Before getting started this morning I first woke up early only to fall back asleep and then woke up cranky and reluctant to get out of bed. I was not a joyous sight to behold. Then I took some time to wake up and prepare food before getting started. naturally I also needed to properly clean the kitchen before I could start work. It was safe to say I did my best to put off doing anything resembling work. When I could avoid it no longer I made a start on assignment 3. It took me quite some time to get anything written given how easily distracted I was. In college I studied using energy drinks to keep me going and I wasn't as twitchy then as I was today.If I had just managed to keep myself off social media then it is safe to say I would have finished this hours ago. So I did manage to cobble together a few paragraphs and then spent a ridiculous amount of time researching theories of motivation online. It did seem ironic given how unmotivated I was by the task at hand. It was then I decided I needed a much needed break and accidentally put work on hold for two hours. Reluctantly I dragged myself back to the computer and finished something that resembled the last assignment. It definitely had words and sentences but after that I am not sure if there will be much worth rescuing from my last two days work.

Tomorrow I will need to get up brighter and earlier than I have so far this week and actually do something more productive like a serious overhaul on the work I have done so far if I am to have any hope of enjoying my last few days off but given my current streak I am not sure how much hope I would hold out for that. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes out ..

Image
I have been told on more than one occasion that I'm sarcastic. Often that I'm too sarcastic (as though there could be such a thing) and I have retort up my sleeve for such occasions which is if you think I'm sarcastic you should meet my mother. No, really you should because my sarcasm is but a pale imitation of hers. Every so often though I come out without something that makes my friends or other family members pause because sometimes when I open my mouth, my mother comes out.  It's funny how people always take the words you are turning into your mother as such an insult because the reality of the matter is it's a both a good and bad thing. Obviously there are certain qualities I am perfectly happy to emulate and others not so much and on the whole I am not entirely sure how much control I have over it. It's not quite a pick and mix counter here. I think there are some habits you are not even aware you have picked up until someone else kindly points it out....
Read more

How long does it take to learn to drive?

Image
I remember my nieces a year or so back asking me in an incredulous tone how long it takes to learn to drive because for as long as they could remember I had L plates on my car. The answer in my case is four years. Admittedly I probably could have gotten my full licence sooner if I hadn't been so hesitant to do my test in the three years that have passed since my last attempt. I get very anxious during tests or Interviews and so do not perform particularly well at either. I will put that in my list of things I need to work on in the new year. In time since I have learned to drive I feel I have accomplished a lot and yet I will go out of my way to avoid having to parallel park because I feel like its always going to be my Achilles heel. At least I have come a long way from the days when I used to feel anxious about getting into my car and was likely to bunny hop across roundabouts in third gear. The problem with learning to drive is that the older you do the harder it is and...
Read more

Burnout: the sequel

Image
  I am burnt out. Hardly the most shocking declaration given I have been saying it out loud for a while now but here we are. This isn't my first run in with burn out nor will it likely be my last. Not only am I working in a stressful job, a social care worker in residential care, which is no stranger to burn out but also I am autistic so its like I know a secret short cut to getting there. I think as bragging goes this is up there with declaring how many times I have managed to catch covid. Which is 4 at my current count and they say there are no benefits to working in Health care. If you are lucky enough to not have experienced burnout then I can tell you its not an experience I would recommend to a friend. If you have friends working in social care then you probably wont need to.  Some of the things I have been experiencing are random bouts of crying. Given high sensitivity is part of my autism profile, I am no stranger to crying and the first time I experienced burnout it t...
Read more