Finals week is supposed to be a time of intensive studying and commitment to mastering massive amounts of material.

For me, it’s generally that (depending upon the night), but it’s also many other pointless, self-destructive, time wasting, and somewhat obsessively repulsive things.

I have a plethora of “study-activities” that I partake in most rigorous nights of school work: my favorite is, obviously, retreating to the infamous Facebook. I also move my study materials around the house (from different parts of my room, to the living room, from there to the family room, from there to the dining room table), and turn my music on and off. I also, shamefully enough, pour myself endless glasses of milk and varying liquids (I mean endless…) and sometimes apply makeup or body lotions several times.

I do these activities whenever a) I actually start getting something done, or b) one of them seems beneficial for some odd reason. The problem with this situation, though, is that whether they are barely beneficial or not (which they usually aren’t: drinking un- caffeinated liquids so I’ll have to go to the bathroom a million times is certainly not), they usually end up being far more time consuming than I originally assumed and hoped they would be, and take me out of mf my zone when I start focusing.

So, the question of the hour is why I continue doing them. As evinced in this column, I’m clearly aware of how unbeneficial they are, as well as ludicrous I look as I convince myself that they are.

The truth is, there is no reason, besides basic fear of failure and laziness. Whenever I start doing something right, as I stated was an initiator for these “study activities,” I start fearing that I won’t be able to keep it up, so I go do something else. So constructive I know.

The moral of this tragic cycle is a testimony to a significant aspect of the teenage experience: procrastination.

And the sad thing is that the only available way to break through the problem is through self-determination and endurance: essentially, yelling at yourself when you start to stray away from your work. Butt-in-chair tactics.

A possible way to help procrastination is having middle-schoolers attend seminars in which they learn about the effects of procrastination and continuously staying up late, and ways to curb cravings to do everyone’s own unique “study activities.” They could possibly be part of health classes. It would be perfect for middle schoolers because, at this stage, most have not developed massive procrastination habits as the work load is lighter and easier. Still, they are about to become high-schoolers, where some will unquestioningly become major procrastinators. If they attend these seminars, they could avoid wasting time and might even do better in high school due to learning how to approach the issue. Most people develop ways to study effectively by the time they are adults, but seminars could make academic high school life a lot easier.

Although I doubt this will ever happen, I still propose this, and feel that administrators should consider it. If I could I would totally help a kid avoid walking around their house turning on and off lights in different rooms because they think it “makes a difference.”