Perhaps Isaac Asimov and I have something in common, writing. Once called "the human writing machine," according to spotlight on literature, Isaac Asimov (1929 - 1992) was the author of over 470 books. "I must write," the prolific Asimov would say. "I look upon everything but writing as an interrution".
Spotlight on literature says he is perhaps the most widely known science fiction writer in the world. Among his honors were five Hugo Awards from the world of science fiction series (for his foundation services); best novel 1973 (for the Gods thenselves); and best short story1983 (for "the Bicetennical man").
The science fiction writers of America voted his work"Nightfall" the best all the science fiction story.
Asimov also wrote dozens of popular nonfiction books and articles about science, maths and other topics.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
A Weakend Taken for Granted
“Thank God it is Friday”
This is a statement that is common among workers. I was yet to know why this is so, prior to my coming to AAUN, but the week that ended 15th of October, 2005, made it clear to me.
The week was a very hectic one, as usual and that weekend, I was not less busy, either. But it did promise to be less hectic as there were no classes and this made me took it for granted.
There were lots of assignments to be done over the weekend.
-there was the statistics assignment which I knew I could do under two hours.
-there was SBE 101 assignment, but the due date was farther than others, so I kept it aside.
-the chemistry assignment for that weekend was a group one, so I need not border about it yet, since we (my group members) had agreed to meet in the library on Sunday evening to do it.
-the most tasking assignment awaiting me was a reflection paper on HUM 101(western civilization), and the due date was a week from then. I had already started it though, but I just needed to put it by the side because more impending ones were at hand. These were on WRI 101 and ITC 101.
I was happy that I had succeeded in arranging them to a scale of preference. Oh “Two major assignments to do”, I felt there was more time to do them – Saturday and Sunday.
I decided to join my friends in the football pitch. “Thank God, it is weekend, let’s have fun guys, let’s have fun.” This was my voice as I ran out of the dorm, and dashed into the pitch like a mad dog chasing a bone. I was really doing this to free myself from the shackles of the academic rigor (bulk of assignment). In fact I played the game like I have never done before. I had to make it an interesting one. I really played like a first class footballer, just what it should be expected of an AAUN first class student that I am. And it was my first football game in AAUN. It was like there was no problem in the world, when I was playing – I was totally oblivious of my impending assignments.
We eventually came to the end of the game. I returned to the dorm, took my bath and went for lunch in the dinning hall. The time was 12 o’clock noon and I decided to take my siesta.
I slept for about 2 hours and I remembered that I needed to do some washing. In fact, almost all my clothes were dirty because I had not washed my clothes since the three weeks that I had been in the school. This was an opportunity, I thought. I then decided to wash all of my clothes which took about five hours. Thereafter, I brought my “to do list file” and browse through the items that were in my lists. I saw my list of campus newspaper publication entry to be proofread and my course assignments that were pending.
Although, it was easy for me to recognize that my course assignments were the most important, yet I found it hard to select which assignment needed to be done before the others. The usual thing for me was to do the less difficult ones before the harder ones, but in the time management workshop I had attended recently, then, I was taught that doing the most difficult assignment before the less difficult ones was a better option. Much as I would have like to try this latter new method, I taught it wise to make my choice base on the due date for the assignments. I was to have western civilization, statistics and chemistry classes on the following school day (Monday). So I made up my mind to do those first.
No sooner had I made up my mind to start doing the assignments, than two of my friends came saying it was time for dinner and we went for it. “Oh yeah”, let’s go and we left for the dinning hall. Then the “what’s next guys” topic was raised by one of my friends and somebody reminded the trio of the night movie that was coming up in the next 30 minutes, then. At first, I thought about my assignment and told my friends that I was not going for the movie night. They would not like that I know, but I just have to say it. The power to say “NO” learnt during my time management workshop, was yet to be fully established in me; Behold, I agreed to their demand.
The movie ended 10’o clock and in the next fifteen minutes, I was asleep in my room. I was very tired. I woke up in the middle of the night. I imagined how the time had flown. I thought of the achievement of the day and I was surprised that no meaningful successes were made through out the 12 hours of that day. I was depressed as a result of this and I pitied myself for my condition.
I tried to be courageous and tried to do some of the assignment on that night, in my room. But it seemed the room was not ok then I decided to go to the room where I can place my books on the table to write but I could not. I kept on thinking how I wasted the whole of the day time. I try not to think of this, but the more I tried, the harder it becomes for me. My enthusiasm was then very low and I was very lazy. I then packed my books and left the reading room, for my room to sleep.
It was a sunday morning. I woke up early as I was a morning person. Without wasting any time, started working on my assignment. I was glad to be through with those I needed to submit the following day before lunch. I had my bathe, went to the cafeteriate and then to the library for the chemistry group workassignment sheduled at 3 o'clock.
Monday was always a busy day for me because I not only had three courses, but because I have laboratory class to attend on this day. The closing hour was 5 o’clock and got to the room. I had to have some little rest before going for dinner at 7. But a little rest turned into, not just a short nap, but a very deep sleep. I woke up 3.o’clock at night. I was surprised that I had slept that long. I could not accept this time on my table clock to be correct. I looked at my room mate’s clock and it was correlating with it. I felt like slapping myself on the face for not setting the alarm on, so that I could wake up to do my assignment. I was very hungry and this was unusual. I then realized that I had missed dinner. So I took some snacks, then I quickly brought out my ITC 101 textbook and with my laptop, went to the reading room to do my assignment.
There were three tasking assignments to be done but I still found myself still battling with just the second one. That is ITC; a course that eats more than half of every AAUN student time. It was dawn and I then put off the assignment for the writing assignment.
The reading assignment was to read and annotate a five (5) page passage and I needed to do this because we were to have a test on it on this particular day. So I dashed on it with the hope of coming back to my ITC assignment. But the passage seemed very complicated to grasp at first read. I then settled down to read it quite slowly; this time got some lines underlined.
How foolish was I not to be time conscious.
I had settled down to do the assignment, since we had our test on the passage that morning. Writing was the first course for that day, an 8 o’clock class! No sooner had I noticed noise coming from students who were going for classes, than I realizing that I it was time for classes. I quickly rush to the bathroom, had a 5 seconds bath and got dressed for classes.
The full realization that I had taken the weekend for granted came when I stepped into the class and saw that the test had started 15 minutes ago. I learnt my lesson!
This is a statement that is common among workers. I was yet to know why this is so, prior to my coming to AAUN, but the week that ended 15th of October, 2005, made it clear to me.
The week was a very hectic one, as usual and that weekend, I was not less busy, either. But it did promise to be less hectic as there were no classes and this made me took it for granted.
There were lots of assignments to be done over the weekend.
-there was the statistics assignment which I knew I could do under two hours.
-there was SBE 101 assignment, but the due date was farther than others, so I kept it aside.
-the chemistry assignment for that weekend was a group one, so I need not border about it yet, since we (my group members) had agreed to meet in the library on Sunday evening to do it.
-the most tasking assignment awaiting me was a reflection paper on HUM 101(western civilization), and the due date was a week from then. I had already started it though, but I just needed to put it by the side because more impending ones were at hand. These were on WRI 101 and ITC 101.
I was happy that I had succeeded in arranging them to a scale of preference. Oh “Two major assignments to do”, I felt there was more time to do them – Saturday and Sunday.
I decided to join my friends in the football pitch. “Thank God, it is weekend, let’s have fun guys, let’s have fun.” This was my voice as I ran out of the dorm, and dashed into the pitch like a mad dog chasing a bone. I was really doing this to free myself from the shackles of the academic rigor (bulk of assignment). In fact I played the game like I have never done before. I had to make it an interesting one. I really played like a first class footballer, just what it should be expected of an AAUN first class student that I am. And it was my first football game in AAUN. It was like there was no problem in the world, when I was playing – I was totally oblivious of my impending assignments.
We eventually came to the end of the game. I returned to the dorm, took my bath and went for lunch in the dinning hall. The time was 12 o’clock noon and I decided to take my siesta.
I slept for about 2 hours and I remembered that I needed to do some washing. In fact, almost all my clothes were dirty because I had not washed my clothes since the three weeks that I had been in the school. This was an opportunity, I thought. I then decided to wash all of my clothes which took about five hours. Thereafter, I brought my “to do list file” and browse through the items that were in my lists. I saw my list of campus newspaper publication entry to be proofread and my course assignments that were pending.
Although, it was easy for me to recognize that my course assignments were the most important, yet I found it hard to select which assignment needed to be done before the others. The usual thing for me was to do the less difficult ones before the harder ones, but in the time management workshop I had attended recently, then, I was taught that doing the most difficult assignment before the less difficult ones was a better option. Much as I would have like to try this latter new method, I taught it wise to make my choice base on the due date for the assignments. I was to have western civilization, statistics and chemistry classes on the following school day (Monday). So I made up my mind to do those first.
No sooner had I made up my mind to start doing the assignments, than two of my friends came saying it was time for dinner and we went for it. “Oh yeah”, let’s go and we left for the dinning hall. Then the “what’s next guys” topic was raised by one of my friends and somebody reminded the trio of the night movie that was coming up in the next 30 minutes, then. At first, I thought about my assignment and told my friends that I was not going for the movie night. They would not like that I know, but I just have to say it. The power to say “NO” learnt during my time management workshop, was yet to be fully established in me; Behold, I agreed to their demand.
The movie ended 10’o clock and in the next fifteen minutes, I was asleep in my room. I was very tired. I woke up in the middle of the night. I imagined how the time had flown. I thought of the achievement of the day and I was surprised that no meaningful successes were made through out the 12 hours of that day. I was depressed as a result of this and I pitied myself for my condition.
I tried to be courageous and tried to do some of the assignment on that night, in my room. But it seemed the room was not ok then I decided to go to the room where I can place my books on the table to write but I could not. I kept on thinking how I wasted the whole of the day time. I try not to think of this, but the more I tried, the harder it becomes for me. My enthusiasm was then very low and I was very lazy. I then packed my books and left the reading room, for my room to sleep.
It was a sunday morning. I woke up early as I was a morning person. Without wasting any time, started working on my assignment. I was glad to be through with those I needed to submit the following day before lunch. I had my bathe, went to the cafeteriate and then to the library for the chemistry group workassignment sheduled at 3 o'clock.
Monday was always a busy day for me because I not only had three courses, but because I have laboratory class to attend on this day. The closing hour was 5 o’clock and got to the room. I had to have some little rest before going for dinner at 7. But a little rest turned into, not just a short nap, but a very deep sleep. I woke up 3.o’clock at night. I was surprised that I had slept that long. I could not accept this time on my table clock to be correct. I looked at my room mate’s clock and it was correlating with it. I felt like slapping myself on the face for not setting the alarm on, so that I could wake up to do my assignment. I was very hungry and this was unusual. I then realized that I had missed dinner. So I took some snacks, then I quickly brought out my ITC 101 textbook and with my laptop, went to the reading room to do my assignment.
There were three tasking assignments to be done but I still found myself still battling with just the second one. That is ITC; a course that eats more than half of every AAUN student time. It was dawn and I then put off the assignment for the writing assignment.
The reading assignment was to read and annotate a five (5) page passage and I needed to do this because we were to have a test on it on this particular day. So I dashed on it with the hope of coming back to my ITC assignment. But the passage seemed very complicated to grasp at first read. I then settled down to read it quite slowly; this time got some lines underlined.
How foolish was I not to be time conscious.
I had settled down to do the assignment, since we had our test on the passage that morning. Writing was the first course for that day, an 8 o’clock class! No sooner had I noticed noise coming from students who were going for classes, than I realizing that I it was time for classes. I quickly rush to the bathroom, had a 5 seconds bath and got dressed for classes.
The full realization that I had taken the weekend for granted came when I stepped into the class and saw that the test had started 15 minutes ago. I learnt my lesson!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
