Academic Avoidance

Lately I have been procrastinating. A lot. I have a million excuses I keep using for avoiding my school work:

• I’ve just had a week away at ‘school’, I need to relax and unwind
• I’m having another week away (Girl Guides conference and then a medical interview for Dan in Canberra), I need to relax and unwind before all of that travel
• I’ll just watch the end of this DVD – I hate leaving a video half-way through in case someone rewinds it and I lose my place (except that excuse is redundant nowadays but still in use!)
• The sun’s out, I should go outside and play with Charlie
• I want to finish my quilt, I better work on that
• We haven’t been to the farm in weeks, let’s spend a long weekend there
• The kitchen really needs cleaning, I’ll do that for a few hours
• Then I’ll do the bathroom!!

And so on and so forth.

It’s so hard to drag myself away from DVDs and YouTube and trashy day-time TV. This month of travel (past and future) has messed up my academic routine to no end and is frustrating the heck outta me!

The next component of my summer school assessment is due on Friday (the same day I leave for my Girl Guides conference) and I need to get it done by tomorrow at 6pm (which is ‘computer shut down time’ for me). Today I have been doing the basics for it, which can then be fleshed out in the final draft.

It makes me feel like I have, maybe, finally started to accomplish something (beyond sitting on the couch all day). I think having posted my ‘to do’ list to Instagram (and subsequently Twitter) really helped me with my accountability (it’s, you know, out there now, so it has to be done).

Source: Me via Instagram

I have about an hour before I wake Dan for the evening and in that time I want to WILL complete the first draft of this assessment (basically, a written exhibition concept proposal).

Back to Reality

I am back in Mallacoota after just over a week in Canberra for summer school. And wow, it was a blast! It was an amazingly packed week with a group of people who were passionate about the topic and happy to indulge my (great) desire to talk about everything.

I will post more about what happened each day, as well as discuss my assessment task (exhibition proposal plan), but for now I will leave you with my favourite photo from the trip:

At the National Museum of Australia’s Eternity exhibition;
me with the flower clock and Benita from 1990s Australian Playschool

Pre-Departure Panic

I am leaving for Canberra tomorrow to attend my week-long summer school classes. And yes, I am having a mini panic attack about it (what we call a ‘kitty meltdown’ in our house).

SOURCE

I am stressing about:

• Driving to Canberra (and the fact it will most likely rain along the way — I hate the drive out of town in the rain and there are a lot of back-country roads that are horrid wet also)
• Navigating in Canberra (I have not been everywhere I am visiting with my class and my satnav has karked it so HELP! and buy me a new one)
• Being alone (with no Dan, kitties or puppy to hug when I need a hug)
• Attending classes (they run, typically, 10-5.30 and I am having a lot of trouble getting rested lately and not being exhausted in the morning – and coffee is not the solution as 1) it makes me have the panics, and 2) it makes me ‘wheezy’ which means I need to take a hit from my puffer and that gives me double panics!)
• Not having time to see people while I am in Canberra (long days + readings and resting = no time for catch ups = boooo!!!!)
• Getting up on time (see the point above about exhaustion)
• Ridiculously, my hair (I am not convinced by my new haircut some days and today it is being especially flopsy and uncooperative — but I think I just need to avoid conditioning it, maybe)

SOURCE

I just remembered I have not packed my teas — cannot survive without them!!

PS: I know I gave up on the Winter Challenge halfway through. I have had a bit of a rough week preparing for next week (stress related) and did not really get dressed very well each day. I will try and document my outfits while I am in class via What I Wore Today.