Yes, It Was All Part of a Plan

Slow-blogging, let's blame my lack of verbosity on that. Much as I would like to say the time-lag between posts is a conscious effort to only blog after deep thought and meditation, that would be lying. In truth, I can count the times I truly thought deeply before writing something on one hand. I blame Harvard. But actually, I blame my bad, procrastinatory habits. Leaving papers for the last minute (a constant theme here no doubt familiar to you dear constant readers) left me no choice but to think quickly, and often incompletely and shallowly.

But now, in my post-college wilderness of free time, I find myself looking back, and concluding I actually did cheat myself with all my procrastination. What did I gain by sacrificing thinking and writing time to refresh a web page just once more? Next to nothing. And honestly, though some friends evinced amazement that I could actually leave papers to the night before and then hammer out some BS that could still get good-enough-though-not-great grades, I feel I am facing the consequences of four years of that kind of work ethic. Which is why I sit here, feeling like I'm a welfare queen, albeit one with an Ivy League diploma, jobless, and increasingly, feeling so confused about my future. Which reminds me, I should get back to my Foreign Service personal narratives. Ciao possums.

Slutty Farmer

Once again, I find myself doing crucial homework at the last minute, after wasting so much time procrasturbating and not fulfilling commitments to my work and extracurriculars. I rationalize it with arguments like "Oh, I had such a tough last week, with 3 midterms and 2 papers." Obviously, not dropping the ball on those means, hey, willpower, let's take a vacation this week. But I didn't even do my best on those big assignments because I'd been dropping the ball all semester, academically, extracurricularly, and employmentally.

How does it get better? It has to, if I'm going to have anything resembling a successful life. But I don't know where or how to go from here: to go from a serial procrastinator/flake to someone on top of his shit. And I'm not delving more deeply into this dilemma. Instead, I'm orienting my life around the next party (Halloween), planning my costume (slutty farmer), and obsessing over (another) straight crush.

Help?

Embrace the Inner Junkie

Political junkie, not, you know, crack.

As part of Hell Week 2009, I attended a job fair with different government (mostly federal) agencies. And I wonder why I thought anything else would be my calling. I'm not the deepest of thinkers. I'm not sure I can call myself a wonk. I don't know all the contours and crevices of every (or even one) public policy. But I love government. I love the work of government. Whether it's political or technocratic, I think it truly is my calling. So, after that encouraging episode of handing out resumes (although not quite like they were going out of style; I was a little more circumspect), I may have caught my second wind in the job hunt. Moral of the story: follow your dreams, people!

So, 3 midterms and one paper down, with one final paper to go, the end is in sight. This week wasn't perfect as far as the Sisyphean task of becoming a more dependable person, but considering the crushing burden I've felt since last Thursday, I would deem it a comeback.

Also, procrasturbation is my new favorite word. Thanks HarvardFML.

What Just Happened?

One moment I'm wasting away time in a foreign country, sleeping entire days away. The next, I'm waking up early and on time to work 3 days in a row. I credit being back among some of my dearest friends, sharing an awesome apartment during a wonderful summer.

Or maybe it's just a fluke :)

Also, name change. Again.

Update: For those who didn't know, I'm staying with lovely friends Marcela, Nguyen, and Hai Xi until their 4th roommate Darren comes back. Ginormous apartment near Davis. Sweet!

Requiem for a Lost Summer (almost)

And I can only blame myself. I had more money and more acquaintances in BA than I did last year in Barcelona. I had a ready-made family who were awesome beyond words. Even my internship had potential. But I chose the easy route and wasted it all away. Not to entirely discount the fun I've had with the friends I've made here, but there should be more to an international experience than clubbing. So, yes, the work I've done for my internship wasn't challenging, a bit boring, and pretty useless to the organization. But I could have done more, put a little more into it, instead of jumping on any excuse to slack off (I've feigned sickness so many times this summer). As for the rest, I have no excuse. The exchange rate made money so much less of an issue, I had people to explore with, I've had friends who have been here before. I had a family who was more than willing to give me tips on where to go and how to get there. And now with only one week left, I feel like I've cheated myself out of what could have been the best experience of my life.

But you'll notice the almost in my title. I still have one week left in Argentina. Not enough to turn everything totally around, but at least to start making amends. And then I have nearly a month in Boston. With a "real" job and most of my closest friends. And yes, the shame from these past 7 weeks. I can't let myself waste it again. The "real world" is fast approaching, and if I want my last semester to be the best it can be, I need to shape up before then. I've failed, but I'm not failure.

Ultimatum to Self

So many thoughts running through my head, but it’s after 5 and I have to be at work in 4 hours! Perhaps I’ve been reading too many “far-left” blogs tonight, but I’m enraged. I’m enraged at what the Republicans/Far Right are saying about Sonia Sotomayor as they try to stop her from sitting on the Supreme Court. I’m outraged that Ben Nelson gets to call himself a Democrat though he won’t support a public option for health insurance or direct student loans from the federal government. For that matter, I’m outraged at a lot of Senate Democrats who won’t back progressive legislation because it’s politically “inexpedient” and “it takes 60 votes to do anything”. Memo to Senate Democrats: It only takes 50 votes to pass something, you can make the Republicans filibuster (I’d really like to see them talk for hours on end about why we should continue to increase global carbon levels at unsustainable rates, or why universal healthcare is a bad thing, or how exactly we are going to pay to clean up their mess--God forbid we raise taxes!). Yes, you can. You just don’t want to, and I’m willing to bet it’s because you love your job more than the people you represent, you love the money you get from your corporate/rich donors more than the best interests of the other 99.9% of Americans. I’m outraged.

I’m also outraged at myself. I’m mad that I didn’t make it to the next round of the Foreign Service process. I can only blame myself. I’m mad that I let really good grades at the beginning of the semester slip through my fingers, turning in 2 papers days late and not studying for the finals until the last minute. I pulled through, thankfully, with still-decent grades. But I’m not willing to settle anymore, not willing to say “oh well, maybe next time Isaac” or “at least I got a B”. I’ll still have my fun, but I won’t pass off my responsibilities. I can’t. I still have ambitions that 4 years of Harvard haven’t beaten out of me. Sonia Sotomayor got summa cum laude at Princeton. It’s far too late for me to get that here (not even cum laude, sadly), but that doesn’t mean I surrender to the voices I’ve heard around me and in my own head, that I’m an “affirmative action” pick, that I don’t deserve to be here, that I took the place of more qualified (white) people. I’ve surrendered for way too long, I’ve cowered behind my setbacks, allowing them to snowball into failures. But no longer. I don’t deserve anything from this life, it’s too capricious. But I know I can make something of myself. I may not be a genius, but I am smart enough to be at Harvard. I maybe weak-willed at times, but I didn’t survive a childhood of poverty to not gain any strength from it. I may be out of touch with my faith at the moment, but I don’t keep a bible on my nightstand in vain. I don’t express it often in words, but I return the love of my friends and family from the depths of my heart.

I don’t have definite answers, concrete steps to take, but I know there is an answer, I know there is a path ahead. And I refuse to stay on the ground, licking my wounds, fearing more. My outrage at the circumstances around me can change little, thought I will do the little I can to change things. The outrage at myself is a consequence of the consequences of my choices and actions. Those choices I can do something about. I can make different ones. I will make different ones. I won’t procrastinate. I won’t start papers or study for tests at the last minute. I won’t skate by on “decent grades” anymore. I won’t sleep when I can make better use of my time. I won’t rest on my laurels or expect future ones to come to me. I will chase my dreams, as wildly, yet thoroughly as I did in high school (as oxymoronic as that may sound). I will dream bigger dreams and plan accordingly. I won’t waste any more time not making memories with my dearest friends. I won’t wait for a man to rescue me, but I won’t shirk from the chances to meet him. I will tell my family everyday that I love them.

No more excuses, no more “maybes” or “tomorrows” or “laters”. It has to, and will, start now. This is a blog post for me, but wherever you are, whenever you read this, hold me to this promise in any way you can, but know if you don’t, that I do, and will continue to. These are bold promises, and I can’t say exactly what changed inside, as I’ve had this internal counseling session so many times before. All I know is that something is different now. I’m different now. I only have a semester left at the best university in the world, and I don’t want to waste it like I mostly have the last 7. I will take the fullest advantage of the road I have at my feet, like I should have done since the beginning, instead of psyching myself out. The old Isaac is back, hopefully with the old drive, but with the new attitude. And it’s good to be back.

Failure

So this is what failure feels like. Last night's 80s Dance did not go as well as it usually has, and true, there were a lot of extenuating factors beyond HoCo's control (economic calamity, pre-frosh born after 1989), but as co-chair, I feel I bear, or should bear, a lot of the blame. I feel like a failure.

Slipping Through My Fingers

As usual, I'm writing this as a way to procrastinate on my 6-page paper due tomorrow. This weekend, besides being as unproductive as all the others, took a turn for the worse when I started flaking out on my friends and HoCo. I love both of them; they give extraordinary meaning to my time and purpose here at Harvard. But something in me would rather waste time on the internet, or sleep, than go to Drag Night or plan formal. And the worst part is I'm losing time with most of my friends who, unlike me, will not be returning for a semester. There is less than 2 months to spend with them, and a well-balanced person would do his homework so he can fit in HoCo responsibilities and find time to hang out with his friends. But if the take away point from this year-old blog is that I'm not a well-balanced person. And the time to change that is slipping through my fingers.

Jumbled Thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts, most I don't share. I apologize if this blog gets repetitive/boring, I know my life's not that exciting (HoCo, homework, HoCo, other club, HoCo, omg stress, HoCo). But writing this blog has become a means of catharsis for me. I let out a lot of steam into the interwebs, hoping some of that will come back in decipherable smoke signals of some kind.

So, here are some hopes I'm releasing into the cyber-wind. I've been doing push-ups and ab work in my room every night. I'm up to 60 pushups and 180 crunches, bicycle crunches, and leg raises. 6 pack is slowly coming back, arms and pecs are bulking up. I have the feeling that if I started lifting actual weights (first getting over my self-consciousness in weight rooms), I'd get some kind of buff. Or maybe that's what I tell myself to make myself feel better, in an odd way, for not actually going to the gym. I do the same thing with my schoolwork, wait till the last possible second to write a paper, get a decent grade, and tell myself, "See Isaac, you could get an A if you started earlier." Just the possiblity is enough to assuage my guilt for procrastinating.

Yes, through exercising, I hope to make myself a more disciplined student, a more responsible co-chair, a punctual employee, a more energetic friend, able to spend time with my friends because I've done my work. And on that front, the self-improvement front, there is no discernible progress. I've missed French twice this week. I haven't started two papers, one due Monday, the other due sometime before then. I skip work without calling in. The lack of punishment or blowback (an angry email, a threatening letter, anything) only adds procrastinatory fuel to my fire of irresponsiblity.

I've also realized I suck at real dancing. I should stick to gay imitations of hip-hop, because I can't learn steps for shit.

Daily Accomplishments

Who knows, this might become a regular thing:

1. Finished Personal Narratives for the foreign service officer selection process

2. Got accepted for the DRCLAS internship in Buenos Aires this summer

3. Finished taxes

4. Almost through financial aid application

Left on the almighty to-do list? Finish cleaning my room, catch up on readings, and write an unexpected paper. Oh, and have fun; it's spring break after all!

Remind Me...

That pulling all-nighters usually means I'm doing something wrong, not right. And yet, I take a perverse pride in my masochistic tendency to procrastinate until the very last minute. I may work well under pressure, but I hardly ever give myself the opportunity to learn if the reverse is also true. Could I work better, get better grades, if I started papers earlier? I hope so, because if I can only do work when running against a deadline, I'm in for very unbalanced life filled with sleepless nights and wasted days trying to recover.

Identity.Politics.

What am I? I'll admit, it's not a question I often ask myself. My last name and dark skin usually give me away as Hispanic, not that I'm trying to hide anything. But reading about the Census and how they determine the racial make-up of the country got me thinking, what race am I? Almost every time I see the word "Hispanic," there's usually the caveat that "Hispanics can be of any race." Which is true, but rather unhelpful to someone trying to figure out their origins. And figuring out my origins is important to me because I do subscribe to the belief that to know yourself, you must know where you come from. So where do I come from? New Mexico, and except for my paternal grandfather, who did immigrate from Mexico (Guadalajara, Jalisco, to be exact), the rest of my family has lived in New Mexico as long as they can remember, which I've estimated to be at least the late 1800s, if not earlier. Still, "New Mexican" only describes place, "Mexican" is a nationality, not a race (and I usually don't say I'm Mexican), and "Hispanic" is an ethnicity. And that I'm comfortable with.

But what race am I? Here, for me, for many Hispanics, and increasingly, for a lot of Americans, it gets tricky. Ours has never been a country that is fully informed or enlightened on matters of race, after all, even the tiniest drop of African blood classifies one as black, and often dooms him or her to a lifetime of discrimination. For me, living in a community that was predominantly Hispanic, I never worried too much about race and ethnicity, and the issues that arise from being from a minority. Still, it often intrigued me that "Hispanics" could be light-skinned with almost blond hair (termed "guero" in Spanish) to my olive tone, to even darker. Truly a product of intermarriage and racial mixing going back to the earliest waves of European colonization, this "mestizo" heritage defines me, my family, and the Hispanic community well. I look at my pale-skinned maternal grandmother and my dad's blue eyes and realize I am part Caucasian. I notice my own copper-toned skin and hear stories about an Apache great-great grandmother and know I am part Native American. But never have I classified myself as white or Native American on any of the many bubble sheets today's students are so used to filling out. But neither have I said I'm of "mixed" race, though undoubtedly I am. Instead, when forced, I list myself as "other."

But I'll stop before taking more of your time talking about my "otherness."

How Do You Cope...

with procrastination? With the stresses of everyday life? Me, I seem to not cope, or at least, not cope well. Instead, I hide under my bedcovers, cowering from the mountain of homework, commitments, and responsibilities. I waste away days sleeping, seeking escape in a dream-world where there are no papers due tomorrow, no life decisions to be made. Once again, as with the semester before I left, I find myself shirking my duties as a student, as a son, and as a friend. I check the most meager item off my to-do list and call it a productive day, ignoring the upcoming barrage of deadlines and due dates. I know I'm not alone in these feelings, as today's Crimson feature of Harvard's Mental Health Awareness Week showed. I know there are places and people I can turn to to get help. The problem is that I utilized these resources before, shouldn't that mean I don't have to again? Shouldn't I have learned something, grown, matured, and now be able to deal with the repeated circumstance on my own? Or will this pride, fear, and doubt lead to another failed semester?

It's Time to Put Away Childish Things

Our new president took that line from 1 Corinthians 13:11. And just as it applies to America collectively, it very much applies to me as an individual. It's time I stop assuming everything will work out if I just put in minimal effort. I don't deserve anything to happen to me; I must earn it. At Harvard, the sense of entitlement can be almost overbearing, and not just from the privileged. I have been guilty too many times of thinking, childishly, that it is almost a right to get a good grade, an internship, a good job. But it isn't a right. And I've realized that my procrastination won't end until I change how I my outlook on life, until I truly understand that not only success, but survival as well, requires a lot of effort and perseverance. I have to make sacrifices. I have to take responsibility.

Almost finished!

One last final next week, woot! I don't know how I survived the past few days, but thanks to everyone who helped/yelled at me (really, thank you!)

I do need to seriously work on my procrastination. The real world will not accept late papers (or the equivalent), even if they are "just a few hours" late. But overall, I'd say this semester was pretty successful, which means taking time off was even more worth it. Now let's hope I find a summer job, and then a real one.

Take care everyone!

I May Need Help

Professional help that is. With my procrastination. Another late paper, and I had 2 1/2 weeks and slept through most of it (it is my vacation). One thing I do know, my adult life does not bode well if I can't learn some discipline.