Nightowl… Earlybird.. Catnapper

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/daily-prompt-shine/

In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt, “are you an early bird or  night owl”

When it comes to sleep, I go through phases. When I was in my first few years of college, I would wake up at the crack of down (6:26 am to be exact), and I would start my day with home work or some sort of physical activity. I often had a dance class at 8:15 am or earlier, so I had to be ready to go immediately! I also had my morning regime down to a science because I would have my coffee machine prepared to sync with my alarm clock so it could brew perfect coffee as soon as my alarm went off, allowing the aroma to drag me out of bed.

As the years have changed, and class scheduled allowed me to start class at noon opened up my night life tremendously. I would work at IHOP 11 pm to 6 am (or 6 pm to 6 am more often times than not), and I quickly turned into a night owl. On days off, I would just be up all night handling my business and doing homework like it was the norm.

More recently though, my schedule had become so in frequent where I would become the notorious catnapper that would fall asleep anywhere and at anytime.

I even fell asleep during dance rehearsals if I got the chance to sit at all. And even worse, I would drag myself to class and sleep in the back so I wouldn’t lose attendance.

Now things are much better with my scheduling, and I can call myself the Early bird again. The only problem I have is getting to wherever I need to be on time =/

So, I Fell… What Do I Do Next?

The beginning of this week is also the last week of classes. I would be excited like most other years but this round has knocked me down, and kicked me a few times.

With a plethora of projects, presentations, showing, papers, and exams to do all within a week I found myself completely overwhelmed. Literally every large assignment that was due this semester in all of my classes are due this week. Why ASU!?

My GPA has rested safely above a 3.85 for the past five semesters and I was confident I could so it again… Until today. I had a five paged paper, as well as a PowerPoint presentation summarizing the paper, due today and guess when I started it. 12 hours before it was due. But, not due to procrastination, due to order of operations and the long list of tasks and assignments that have been piled on to my life recently. I am used to the excess amount of work to do, I often want more to do to keep form being idle. So, I got the assignments done and in on time. But, it was the worst work I probably have ever done! Period. If i get a 50% on the paper and presentation, I would be shocked. Failing this assignment will bring my grade down to a “C” in the class (because a C is 84% and below in this class for some odd reason).

And if that wasn’t enough, I check my grade in another class and completely FORGOT to do a large assignment that was due last Sunday. So, now I kissed my “A” in the class good-bye. It may sound like I am upset over a few points in the class and am a grade hog, but that’s only partly true. The biggest thing is that I am just really disappointed in myself, and that’s the worst feeling in the world. Knowing you could have done much better if you were just more focused, or in my case, more organized and had better time management skills.

So, theoretically I am face-down in the dirt and have all of the despair in the world, with the rest of the week of work to get through. I have to ask myself now, am I going to just lay here and let the rest of the work engulf me as well? Will I just throw away the rest of the week and accept C’s in the rest of my classes? Or will I use this moment as a reason to make a difference for my future?

I did not do so well today, and there were tons of opportunities in the days/weeks leading up to this day that I could have taken. But, I did not, and I cannot change that. So I owe it to myself to change the future. Tomorrow is a new day and a new battle, so I am taking it by the horns! I will wake up with a vengeance!

I always hear/read people say get back up and try again, but having to actually do it is a whole other story. I’ve decided to write this so I could always remember the day that I fell short of my own potential so that I never do it again. There are going to be many moments when I fall again, fail, and maybe hit a rock bottom, but I only want it to be because I put forth a great effort!