Getting less sleep over spring break...

I came home last Friday to Long Island for spring break to relax, spend some time with my family, and do some work. Though I've been able to see The Grand Budapest Hotel, watch a couple of movies at home with my family, go shopping, and attend a seder, the time I've had off has been stressful.

Spring break is a wonderful thing for many students: it is placed in mid-March as a reprieve from the long month of uninterrupted classes and is a way to herald in the semi-nice weather.  It is also perfectly placed so that students can gather their energy before the final stretch of school.

However, at CUNY we don't get a break in March, we get it in April, when Passover and Easter happen. Unfortunately, school ends about 3 weeks after we come back from spring break, so this is the opportune time to assign our final papers and projects! Such is why I have three 10-15 page papers to write, 2 novels to read, and then basic coursework. Now, reading all of Whitman's Song of Myself might have been semi-enjoyable (and semi-torturous), and I could get through reading all of The Day of the Locust by Nathaneal West in one day. I even completed a whole five page philosophy paper on Aristotle in a night. I've been reading Lolita, and started outlining one of my three papers. But I'm super stressed out.

Here's the takeaway: teachers expect us to plan ahead and work long-term. This is particularly difficult for me. I like getting assignments and then doing them, and then having them done and out of the way. I've always been the type of person who couldn't go to sleep if I hadn't done my homework for the next day. There is no relief from my stress until my work is done. I also don't like the idea that a 10 page paper should take me five weeks to research and write.

Regardless, this is the time that has been given me to work on this work. And as much as I complain that I've gotten less sleep during spring break than when I'm at school, it's just the way it is. Planning ahead and time management are essential in college, and as much as I'd love to do nothing this break but relax, sleep, eat Girl Scout cookies and watch movies, I just can't do it. I know doing that doing these papers now (or at least starting them) will ease my stress in the last couple weeks of school. I just have to keep reminding myself of that for the next couple of days.