Are you a procrastinator? Welcome to the club

Latin class, a Chopped style advice column, and midweek reads

Something nerdy about me is that I took Latin in high school. Everyone in my high school (a magnet public school with a humanities focus) had to take an ancient language for two years (the choices were Latin or Ancient Greek). Yes, it was a requirement, but the nerdy part is how much I loved it.

I studied three foreign languages in high school and at the time, I envisioned a life where I lived abroad and potentially worked in diplomacy or something in international relations. I’ve still never been to Italy, but at one point, I knew a lot about Ancient Rome. I had to memorize the rooms of a typical upper class home, which included many types of dining rooms. Our Latin classes were interesting to say the least. One teacher went on Jeopardy and her anecdote was about a conference where everyone spoke Latin all day. Another teacher was always covered in chalk. Another teacher was the hot teacher (I never had him, much to my disappointment).

In Latin classes, we spent a lot of time on derivatives since so many English words are Latin derived (they really emphasized how much it would help with our SAT prep). I still remember the day we learned the root of the word procrastinate. Pro means forward and cras means tomorrow. It’s pushing something forward until tomorrow and it’s something I have lots of practice with.

I saw a tweet recently that becoming a writer was basically like deciding to do homework for a living and it hit home. Every time I write an article, there’s a deadline, research, interviews, at least one round of feedback and a grade of sorts (it’s a pass/fail system in the professional world). Now, I get paid for this work and I chose this career path, but it sets up the work week in a way that can feel like that one week in school where you have a test in every class. Also, every writer has used a deadline to get out of plans (Carrie Bradshaw did it on a SATC rerun I watched this week).

As someone who was good at school (this is a privilege in many ways and has its drawbacks when it comes to being a well rounded person with a sense of self worth that does not rely on accomplishment), I know all too well the thrill of getting something done at the last minute. You have a few hours before a deadline and suddenly the pieces click into place. It’s the moment you can’t put anything off any longer and you get down to business with a sense of clarify that’s hard to access when you have days to dawdle. I used to do this in library carrels, with a coffee and the perfect playlist, and would feel a sense of pride (and exhaustion) walking back home through the dark campus.