master in the art of cramming

          I am a master in the art of cramming. For the past 12 years of my academic life, there never came I time that I didn’t cram for an exam, reaction paper, problem sets, and all school works you can imagine.

          I remember cramming my take-home exam in CL30 (Comparative Literature) last semester. I started doing it 5 hours before the deadline. I had to answer questions regarding the assigned readings/books (which I was only able to read ¾ of what we were required) for the semester. Thanks to technology and internet, I was able to answer most of the questions through ‘careful’ and much research and reliance on the world wide web. The result? A not-so-good-grade in that subject.

          I lose interest and motivation when I study and do things in advance. I work well under stress, and I can yield good results because I think and get inspired the most when I’m under pressure. But after seeing the outcome of my work, I tell myself ‘I could have done better if I have done this earlier.’ I would promise myself that I won’t cram again the next time a project/assignment comes up, but the cycle would go on and on and on.

          Anyway, I promise that I would do things earlier so that I would have lots of time to collate ideas and put them into action. This time, I MEAN IT (I told myself this a lot of times already and broke my own promises) and I hope things would be different.