#getting a coffee then going to lib and pulling an all nighter

[faaun]

locking in so late but locking in nonetheless

[iamsophophile]

How to Bit Procrastination

Stand up and be productive! 💙

Procrastination is the bane of every student’s existence. We know what we should be doing; we just don’t want to do it. It’s easy to put off undesirable assignments until the very last minute, but then we’re forced to pull a stress-induced all-nighter. Here are some tips to crush procrastination and actually get some sleep for once!

1. Get organized

First of all, you can't do any work if you don't know what assignments need to be completed. Invest in a planneror start using the calendar app on your phone. This makes it much easier to keep track of individual assignments and important due dates.

2. Create a timeline/schedule

After you set your goals, create a timeline to complete them. This could be a study schedule for your big exam coming up or it could be mapping out an essay you have to write. Breaking an assignment into small chunks over time makes it much more manageable.

3. Set a deadline

It's important to set a specific date for when you want your goals to be accomplished. If you have an assignment due, aim to have it completed one or two days in advance. That way, if something unexpected happens, you still have extra time to complete it. 

4. Get rid of distractions

It’s important to rid yourself of all potential disruptions before you begin working so you don’t get needlessly sidetracked halfway through your task. Distractions could also be external sources, like annoying siblings. Try listening to classical music or white noise to drown out their constant chatter. Alternatively, you could change study environments all together and head down to the local library or coffee shop, where you can clear your mind and study distraction-free. 

5. Take a break

It's important to take mental breathers from school work every now and then. When your timer goes off, take a 10–30-minute break. Listen to music, take a walk, do some laundry, or scream into a pillow—anything that takes your mind off of work and allows you to relax. 

6. Use incentives

Everyone loves being rewarded. It’s important to give yourself incentives, no matter how small. It could be something as simple as, "If I work on this assignment for an hour, I'll watch an episode of my favorite TV show tonight." It’s easier to pay attention when something is at stake. 

7. Get the hard stuff done first

It is best to complete your most challenging assignments first. That way everything after it seems easier and takes a shorter amount of time. If you keep pushing that English essay back, you’re never going to get it done. It’s best to buckle down and just do it. 

Did you know?

Procrastinators may be paralyzed by fear of making a mistake, a loss of self-worth.

People aren’t inherently lazy when they engage in procrastination. Just ask them. They’ll come up with a dozen distinct reasons for their delay to act. At the heart of the problem of procrastination, at least for some individuals, may be a paralyzing fear of making a mistake and thus suffering a loss of self-worth.

So it is the right time to do your tasks and be productive!

. . .

Related Article: https://psychcentral.com/lib/10-good-and-10-bad-things-about-procrastination/

. . .

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: MOVIE REVIEW: Coffee & Kareem

(Image by Justina Mintz for Netflix)

COFFEE & KAREEM— 1 STAR

The posters for Netflix’s latest action comedy Coffee & Kareem (which is silly already because it would never see a theater, with or without a pandemic shutdown) have been trying to splash its stars Ed Helms and youngster Terrence Little Gardenhigh in classic poses, fashions, and fonts from Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours, and Die Hard. The crack marketing department is really trying to get your nostalgic attention for the violent and raunchy R-rated cop movie of old with this PhotoShop power play. Catch a whiff right here:

Those posters clearly catch the eye, but once Coffee & Kareem attempts to evoke the promotional notion that it is worthy of standing next to classic giants like those three films as a homage or even as an lesser riff, it’s asking to bomb. 

LESSON #1: DON’T PRETEND TO BE SOMETHING YOU’RE NOT— When you fail, even intentionally, you become one more shitty cop movie from a generation ago. Does someone get an award somewhere from some lofty agency of aficionados when you make a shitty cop movie precisely as shitty as the old shitty cop movies this shitty cop movie emulates and remembers? Is that a Razzie or something else?

James Coffee is a mustachioed and divorced peace officer in the city of Detroit who naively loves Hall & Oates, upholding the law, helping people, and, yeah, yeah, yeah, the straight do-gooder wussy stuff you would expect. He is a complete dolt, played by the actor with the most locked-in doltish gear in the business in Helms. With a salt-grained hint of spice, James is bedding Taraji P. Henson’s hot, black, and widowed nurse named Vanessa. She is the mother of Kareem, her pudgy and fast-talking teenage son, played by the feature-debuting TV actor Gardenhigh. 

In more than the usual “so many words,” Kareem doesn’t like where Coffee’s nightstick has been. He plots to pay off a popular juvenile convict named Orlando (RonReaco Lee) to rough the dorky cop up to scare him away from his mom on a day when Coffee is picking the teen up from school. Orlando is, coincidentally, a collar Coffee embarrassingly lost which resulted in office chiding from his superior (Betty Glipin, recently of The Hunt) and a traffic duty demotion from his captain (a gray-bearded David Alan Grier). 

In propositioning the former hood, Kareem (and a tailing Coffee) are caught at the scene of a cop execution, one that Kareem records on social media. In the cross hairs of their own at-odds foolishness, the titular duo find themselves mixed up in dirty cops, tasers, drug deals, media-spun kidnapping confusions, gun play, constant racial and homophobic faux pas, and a heap of danger that will get them both in boiling hot water with Vanessa, let alone iced-down toe-tagging coroners and other higher authorities.

Coffee & Kareem surges for maximum sarcastic sacrilege out of all involved. Lovers of good roasts laced with compound obscenities will have much to love. Especially with Terrence Little Gardenhigh, this is way past Kids Say the Darndest Things. The savage vitriolic humor he spews, whether it’s scripted or ad-libbed, is snappy for sure and also vile beyond comprehension at some points. The second best stinger in the hive is Betty Gilpin busting balls like they were loaded in a Whac-A-Mole machine. 

LESSON #2: MEN OF ALL AGES ARE HORRENDOUSLY INSECURE— Thanks to the profanity, the loudest and bluntest message this movie has is trying to present all of the possible the insecure posturing males attempt when trying to think and be tough. They exaggerate. They lie. Their mouths get them in trouble. They get called out on it, and they furiously flail and fail. That’s not exciting. That’s sophomoric.  

Returning to the opening rant, where Coffee & Kareem treads on greatness and fails miserably in trying to be tacky tribute to comedy gold is in the stakes department. As irreverent as Eddie Murphy or Bruce Willis ever got in their iconic wiseacre roles, their movies had actual peril and imposing boundaries. There was either an authority figure peer or an indomitable villain (often both) that always grounded the kite-flying humor back to the grit that was a tried and true cop movie. With that edge, the humor was wiser and the body counts mattered because one of them could, at any point, become the protagonist or someone they or you cared about.

Zero of that level of sharpness or heft exists in Coffee & Kareem, directed by Stuber helmer Michael Dowse, who knows his way around the 80s with his career peak Take Me Home Tonight. The closest you get is Taraji P. Henson staring holes through ignorance, shouting more F-words, slapping tastes out of mouths, and whipping ass in her fleeting Pam Grier-esque moments to dominate. That was never going to Gilpin’s rival or any of the gun-toting henchmen. Instead, the best you get is some partial heart from the range-less Ed Helms connecting with the kid and the attempt of sacrificing his well-being to save who he comes cares about. That’s weak sauce here.

At around the one-hour mark with just about 30 minutes remaining in this economical one-nighter, Coffee reaches a point where he bemoans Kareem “Just pull over and stop. Let them kill me. I’m done.” Boy, after the hour that was already had, filled with dumbfounded narrative and creative choices, fake trauma, and forgotten consequences, he ain’t kidding. Pass the bullet and the remote. 

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#868)

Permalink

from REVIEW BLOG – Every Movie Has a Lesson https://ift.tt/39xWdBS via IFTTT

from WordPress https://ift.tt/3bZvBvl via IFTTT

[thewritingjasmine]

Escape (Not the Pina Colada Song)

I sat in my car alone. The silence was only broken by the occasional tire squealing across the asphalt. The parking lot was full of cars, and I felt almost comfortable, snuggled in between the two SUVs. As I stared through my windshield, past the chrome Honda Accord, my view of the tree on the other side of the lot was slowly being obscured by the light snowfall. Having just shut off my car, I could feel the heat being replaced by the freezing cold. I couldn’t go inside. Not yet. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and leaned my head back. Just a few more minutes. This isn’t a healthy way to deal with your problems. I was losing track of the amount of times I’d sat in this parking lot, trying to avoid interacting with my roommate, having nowhere else to go. Out of my peripheral, in the seat of my car, I saw my phone’s screen light up. As I picked it up, I sighed. I’d been ignoring my phone for too long. Text messages from my mom? Ignore… Snapchat from my roommate? Not now… Emails… Not important… OKCupid? My thumb hovered over the push notification. “Jake messaged you! This could be big!” I tapped on the notification almost instinctively. I always hoped that the notification specifically designed to make me want to use this app was right and that maybe it “could be big.” Pressing the notification lead me to Jake’s profile. Only one picture, strike one. He says the phrase “I’m a good guy, and I’m funny,” strike two. The only person that gets to decide if someone is funny is me. “The three most important things in my life are my car, my family, and God. In that order.” I swiped left on Jake. He’d probably rather have sex with his car than with me. I forget about the message he sent me. Vijay, 22, smoking a cigarette in one of his pictures. Swipe left. Sal, 20, his self-summary is “Young college guy” and nothing else. Wow, I feel like I really got to know him. I swiped left. Ariana, 19, super cute, 93% match. Beautiful ebony skin and bleached blonde hair. We go on our first date. I can tell she feels kind of awkward, but the way she laughs at my jokes tells me she wants to be there. She’s wearing a blue, spaghetti-strap sundress and combat boots. Her hair is cut short, and I can make out each individual curl. We decide to go to a coffee shop on our date, but neither of us order coffee. “You don’t like coffee either?” I laugh, and she smiles in her awkward way, telling me she’s more of an herbal tea kind of girl. I sighed. Why didn’t she just tell me she doesn’t like coffee? I swiped left. James, 23. His only picture is of a jack-o-lantern. Swipe left. Brandon, 20. “Wanna Netflix and Chill? You can probably beat me at Fortnite.” Left. Doug, 21. 94% match. They/Them pronouns. Speaks Spanish. Gorgeous, curly black hair that you only dream about having. One of their pictures showed them with black nail polish, but it’s not in an “I’m still in my emo phase” way, so it’s cute. “When I graduate, I want to move to New York and become an actor.” After a few dates, we start pursuing a relationship. I was convinced it would be nothing serious, but we spend most of our spare time together now. They’ve made a habit of falling asleep in my arms when I try to show them some of my favorite movies and tv shows. It used to be annoying, but now it gets cuter every time it happens. They laugh at all my jokes, even the bad ones, and, if I tell them enough jokes, they’ll kiss me to shut me up. I’ve slowly started falling in love with, not just their personality, but everything about them. The way their curly, black hair falls over their eyes, the freckles that brush their cheeks and bring out their smile, and the sweatshirt they stole from me… They’re perfect. “Too bad I want to move to Boston after I graduate,” I swiped left and placed my phone face-down in my passenger seat. That’s enough. I should just delete that stupid app. I felt the cold that had seeped its way into my car. I looked down at my hands and flexed my fingers. I knew I could only stand to be in there for a little longer. I glanced up at my building to answer a question I already knew. The lights in my dorm room were on; my roommate was home, and she wasn’t asleep yet. Dammit. I picked up my phone again with every intention to respond to my mother. Facebook message? I tapped on the blue circle to read the message, “Hey! I lost my syllabus for HIS262, can you send me the rubric for the paper due tomorrow?” Oh, yeah. I closed the app. We have a paper due tomorrow. I should get on that. I found myself scrolling through my newsfeed. Something political I didn’t want to read tonight. Continue scrolling. A cute dog playing with a balloon. Like. My aunt shared a post: “Real women have meat on their bones and don’t eat salad.” I comment: “All women are ‘real women,’ including, but not limited to: skinny women, trans women, and women who don’t have children.” Throughout the next day, I’m plagued with “You need to lighten up. My post was meant to be light-hearted” and “All you lib-tards take things too seriously” replies. I get a message from my mom, asking me to apologize to my aunt after being so rude. Too much red tape. I continued scrolling, careful to avoid accidentally reacting to the post. My mother shared a video that teaches people how to make “ice cream lasagna.” I’m glad her diet is working. Like. My little sister shared a picture of a Jeep Wrangler with the caption “They say money can’t buy you happiness, but I’d rather be crying in a Jeep Wrangler.” She was trying to be subtle with my parents about her intense need for a Jeep Wrangler on her 16th birthday. Like. A funny video of a cat stepping in water. I instinctively started to tag my roommate. She loves cats. Before I hit send, I saw that her boyfriend had already tagged her in it. Continue scrolling. My sister-in-law posted a picture of my niece. She’s wearing a Princess Belle costume. It’s captioned “She told me she wants to sleep like a princess and yells when I try to take it off. This girl officially has the most expensive pajamas.” Heart react. I started scrolling through the posts absent-mindedly, so fast that I wasn’t even reading them anymore. I glanced at the clock in my dashboard. 10:47pm. When am I going to go inside? I flex my fingers again; I could feel them getting stiff. I could turn on the car again, or I could go upstairs. I put my phone to sleep and stared at my keys. I could drive anywhere. I almost have a full tank. I don’t have to go inside right now. I close my eyes, take one last deep breath, and grab my bag. Walking up the two flights of stairs is agony. Maybe I should exercise more. I grab the doorknob, count to three, and open the door. My roommate and her boyfriend are cuddling on the couch. At least they’re not having sex. When I walk in the room, it’s freezing. They always kept the thermostat 10 degrees colder than necessary because they could keep each other warm. “How was your night?” the way my roommate asks feels like it was pre-recorded, I’d heard it so much lately. “Um, longer than I wanted it to be,” I grab a couple books off my desk, “I have a 7-page paper to write, so I’ll be in the lounge if you need me.” “When’s it due?” the boyfriend chimes in, like he cares. “Noon.” “Why didn’t you do it sooner?” “I haven’t had time.” “Well, I feel like you could’ve budgeted your time better. Then, you wouldn’t be pulling an all-nighter.” I look away from him and grab a notebook from my bed. He had a nasty habit of making me feel inferior or stupid. “Well, that’s not what happened,” I leave the room quickly, trying to avoid conflict. You need those books. “Fuck it,” I exited the car, grabbing my phone and my bag, locking my doors as a walked across the parking lot. After the uncharacteristically short two flights of stairs, I stopped at my doormat. I stared at my door, at the rainboots next to the doormat, at the numbers by our door. I put my hand on the doorknob, and, while I turned it, I put on the best smile I could. Then, I opened the door, still smiling. “I’m home.” My roommate and her boyfriend were cuddling on the couch—our couch—watching the same show they’d been watching for the past three weeks on my TV with my Netflix account. I can’t remember the last time I even thought about watching TV.. “Hey,” my roommate’s voice was tired and disinterested. The greeting was a formality at this point. “Hi,” I tried so hard to make it sound genuine, but it came out a little more aggressive and short than I intended. I walked past them and grabbed the books from my desk. They didn’t quite fit in my bag, but I forced them into their place. I made sure my laptop and its charger were still there. Her boyfriend glanced over at me, “How was your day? “Long,” I really didn’t feel like explaining the intricacies of my day, and I knew he didn’t really care; he just wanted to use me as a pawn to make himself feel better. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, “I’m gonna go start a paper that’s due in 12 hours. Pray for me.” I pushed my way through the door. I set my things down in the lounge and intentionally didn’t turn the lights on. The lounge had become another place I went to avoid interacting with my roommate. I closed my eyes again and cried.