Ohhhhh, Andygirl, I know your pain.
And I am a fellow Altoids fan. I’ll also be using quite a bit of Vivarin and ma huang (aka “ephedra”) before the week is over.
I have a paper (20 pg. maximum) due on Wednesday. It’s about recommendations for improving our methods of biological control of the gypsy moth in N. America. I also have a humungous lab report due then. And there’s yet another paper due on Thursday. Plus, I’m going to have to spend Thursday out at my research site. (It’s just outside the teeming metropolis of South Bloomingville, OH, USA, for those of you who care to know. I’m about 1.5 hours northwest of there, at Ohio State U., in Columbus, Ohio.) Research trips (My fellow entomology and ecology people usually call them “field days.” Yes, I’ve heard all the jokes about having a field day with what I do. I should probably post that in the thread about stupid comments we’re sick of hearing…but I digress.) demand a certain amount of planning and organizing ahead of time, and you have to be able to think clearly while you’re out there working. Right now, I’m feeling pretty screwed.
What have I actually accomplished so far?
Well…I have photocopied and read one of the articles I’ll be using in my biocontrol paper. And, um…well, that’s about it. Oh, yeah–and most of the supplies I need for my field day have already been bought, and are sitting in a pile all together at my lab bench. (Except for the stuff that’s in a pile all together on the bedroom floor.)
Ecch.
Well, I say we martial our energies and GO FOR IT!! We WILL get through this without any major damage.
[hijack]
Am I the only one who suffers from a vicious cycle of anxiety and procrastination? When I start to work on major projects, I get physically sick and my heart races from nervousness. So I go do something else to calm down for a while. After my heart rate returns to normal, and I start to feel human again, I notice that HOLY CRAP!!! I’ve just wasted x number of PRECIOUS HOURS that I should have been applying to my project!!! And the anxiety kicks in again, but made worse this time, so another period of calming down is required…This keeps on snowballing until I’m too exhausted to be nervous any more. This cycle was a problem for me in my undergrad, but I got through it–not well, but well enough. Now I’m in grad school, and if I don’t bring this under control SOON, it’s going to kill my career.
[/hijack]
OK.
Now I’m going back to working on my paper.