I suck at working

I really should be getting some stuff done on my Algorithms final right now. But I'm not.

I work well under pressure. I think I work at my best under pressure. In high school, that pressure was always there, and so I was a much better worker than I am now. Since I was at a Math and Science school, the ever-looming pressure of being kicked out kept me on my toes (If you had an F and/or two D's two nine-week periods in a row, they kicked you out). Seeing as I hated my home-school and wouldn't have been able to live with myself it I'd had to go back, there was a lot of pressure there, and for the most part I thrived (Biomedical Physics aside--the hell was I thinking taking that class?)

There's just something that excites me, motivates me when I know there's something major at stake. I have no doubt that I will get this work done, and I have little doubt that I'll do quite well on it, but until then I sit here, procrastinating, knowing that I shouldn't be, but lacking the motivation to get off my ass and do something about it. My tendancy to procrastinate is certainly not my greatest flaw as a person, but it's unquestionably my greatest flaw as a student.

I think part of why I enjoy gaming so much is that I can really get into the world that the game takes place in, and its fate becomes an important motivator for me. The need to save that world (or destroy it, as the case far-too-rarely is) provides the same pressure as a big assignment being due the next day, and I enjoy the adrenaline that provides. I've tried more than once to put my work into a game-like context in an attempt to shrug off the procrastination habit (if you don't finish that problem set by tomorrow, the great lich [insert bullshit name here] will return, even though the assignment is actually due in three days!), but I can never quite convince myself for reasons that should be obvious, given my example.

I'm not even sure if it's a major problem for me. As I said before, I almost always get my work done on time, and I always do fairly well on said work. If my grades are still good (and they are--I expect three A's and one B this semester, and that B is there because the art professor is full of shit) should I even be concerned about it? I think that question, looming there, unanswered, is another thing that keeps me from breaking the habit. The fact that I actually didn't procrastinate during the few bad grades I've gotten doesn't help. I worked my ass off in both Zoology and Botany, beginning my studies for exams a week or more in advance, studying my goddamned flash cards every night, and I still made a C in Botany and failed Zoology. Studying in advance didn't help in the least then, so why should I expect it to now? I think this kind of thought is what stops me, and I don't know how to get rid of it. After all, the evidence is there, and I can't just ignore it.

I came up here figuring I'd post this and then get to work, but I know I won't at this point. I think I'mma go look for a ROM of Zelda: A Link to the Past and replay it--it's been years since my last run through that one, and I'm sure I've forgotten a lot. Maybe I'll get something up on the character sheets for one of the two DnD games I hope to join over the summer (thus far). Perhaps I'll do some more writing on DDSd20, or start constructing the dungeon for the DnD game I'mma run over at the guys' place this summer. Whatever it is, it certainly won't be work. And honestly, I think I'm okay with that.