Feeling really lame

College Life
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<p>This isn't a problem, and this isn't unique by any means, but it still bums me out a bit thinking about it. More of an idle musing than a depressing thought.</p>

<p>Background: I am a History major at a top 20 (At least according to U.S. News) research university. Spring break is next week. Given that I have a presentation and paper due this week, I've put off the easiest work there is to put off when you absolutely have to cut time to work on a project and prelims aren't looming on your horizon: reading. As a history major taking Gov, History, and Spanish courses, this means falling pretty far behind, and in Spanish, suffering in participation and a poor exam grade.</p>

<p>Next week is spring break. Some of my friends are going to the Bahamas or Europe, while I will be staying at home. I am perfectly fine with this, especially given the economic situation and the fact that my closest friends will be home anyway. However, I have tons of lessons in Spanish to catch up with, hundreds of catch up reading in History and Psych, and a group project as well as a paper due the week after spring break. Obviously, I am going to be doing some work over break. Being the nerd that I am though, I am fine with this. I am an avid reader of Cal Newport's Study Hack's blog, and feel that it is time to conduct my "mid-semester dash." I feel that I will be able to finally pay much needed attention to Spanish and bring my grade out from B range (I'm comfortable with Bs but I'm also minoring in Spanish), catch up with history, space out preparation for my next psych midterm, write a great paper, and write some more great cover letters and conduct several phone interviews for internships.</p>

<p>So I am nerdily excited by the prospect of catching up, and sitting down in my own desk, in a room without a roommate, and spacing out work at my own pace without deadlines or obligations. But I feel like some of my friends are making me feel guilty for this. I know, boo hoo, but I don't see why I should be ashamed. I think it's perfectly normal to use spring break to catch up on some work (because if you're like me, you're slightly behind by the middle of the semester, because you've been slightly burned out after the first round of prelims and papers, and if you don't want to be playing a game of endless catchup all semester you need to get with it at some point). I'm perfectly content doing work 4-5 hours a day for four days out of my spring break, and then going to the beach one day and seeing a movie and just lounging at home. I just don't like being looked down on for this, and am reaching out to the other people out there who like to play a little catchup over spring break.</p>

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<p>I’m using my break to learn all the stat i slept through.</p>

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<p>im gonna buy halo wars and play all through the break. if i had friends id do a road trip though.</p>

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<p>Embrace you nerdiness!</p>

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<p>Fellow Cornellian! I guess I gave myself away by saying “prelims”</p>

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<p>I dont mean to be rude, but I honestly dont see a point to your post.</p>

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<p>he says it’s </p>

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<p>Don’t feel lame. I’m going to be going home and studying to catch up on all the economics i missed :(</p>

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<p>Haha yes definitely a dead giveaway. Enjoy the uncharacteristically decent weather today!</p>

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<p>What do you want people on this board to say? We’re not your family or close friends or anything. I think it’s sad you need support from strangers to feel better about yourself.</p>

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<p>haha my french linguistics professor used to teach at cornell & he calls them “prelims” too</p>

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<p>You can tell someone’s personality by how they treat people in anonymous message boards. Why don’t you choke colboy? I just had a relatively crappy day. Some things like this I don’t want to tell my closest friends/family. But I’m not going to justify it any more than that, because I don’t have to in the first place.</p>

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<p>My roommate’s in Puerto Rico and I am in my room in cold New York. I have a presentation to prepare for a class next week; I have a group project that requires contacting an organization member, doing some research and drawing up an interview guideline; I can get a headstart on my statistics homework and get some of my research reading done.</p>

<p>I wish I could travel for spring break, but I don’t have the money. Using the time to catch up is wise, especially since April is typically Crunch Month in preparing all of your final papers and projects to wrap up the year.</p>