There's always this version of me that exists only in my imagination every semester - the serious student. The one who attends every class, reads immediately after lecture, and knows every topic before exam even gets close.
Unfortunately, that version of me never survives past the first week of resumption or it just remains in my imagination only.
Before school resumed that particular semester, I had already decided, I told myself that the semester would be different. There will be no procrastination, no laziness and no last minute reading. I even planned it out in my head that after each lecture, I would go back to my hostel, rest a little, and then go over my notes from the day's lecturer. I also planned on doing a lot of additional reading on that day's lecture with the help of the internet, YouTube in particular. I was ready, motivated and determined. Then school resumed and reality entered the chat.
Everything went smoothly the first week. I attended classes, took notes neatly, and even arranged my reading materials in a folder in my phone like a proper student. After attending a long lecture on that D-day, I finally decided to start what I set out to do. I returned to my hostel, ate, took my bath and decided to rest for 10 minutes. That ten minutes turned into a three hour nap, and by the time I woke up, I had lost the motivation I had from the start . Just like that. After that, reading after lecture became sometime I only said I'd do. I kept telling myself that I would catch up with my reading tomorrow, but even tomorrow was another day filled with lecture, and so the cycle continued. In my minf, I was doing fine since I was not failing. But I was only deceiving myself.
Another lie I told myself was that I would read all my PDFs and materials from the start of the semester. I even asked for them from seniors and downloaded them earlier than the lecturer actually sent them to us. And I actually tried for a while. I started reading some of them a few months before exams. Eventually, after some time passed, I got tired, I lost concentration and then stopped. I thought I could still return to it since I still had plenty of time. Spoiler Alert, I did not.
With only a month to go before exams started, I went back to them again. As I opened the PDFs though, I found myself looking at everything as if I was seeing it for the first time because about seventy percent of everything I had previously read was lost from my memory. That alone drained my motivation. So I told myself, what's the point? I'll just forget it again before exams.
And I stopped reading all together.
It wasn't until a week before exams that I suddenly became serious again. Panic mode activated. I started reading like my life depending on it (it actually does). It was then that I turned into a night reader, drinking coffee and swearing never to repeat this same mistake the next semester.
Though thinking about it now, I cannot even be angry at myself. It's kind of funny how everytime, many students, including myself, has that same talk with themselves, "This time will be different". But then life happens, sleep happens, tiredness happens, and the next thing we know, exams are knocking. Hopefully, I become that student I keep saying I'm going to be soon.
Inviting 
>Image was generated using Gemini
