procrastinaire..

I just called my husband as the king of procrastination, hehe :p For me that is a compliment much better than the “Your six pack makes you look sexy” (oh, he’s turned into one pack that makes me laugh :D hehe..)comment I usually get as I climb into bed. Procrastination is an art form that has been refined and developed by most males. For me I developed my ability at Pasundan High School and then refined it at Ina University of Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Major Area Psychology : Guidance & Counseling. It didn’t come easily but with practice I have made my life a walking testament to the value of procrastinating.

At Habibi I ran by the saying

“Why do something now when you can delay it and do it tomorrow.”
This managed to see me well through my schooling a deliver me a satisfactory ‘B’ Bursary. For a beginner procrastinator this is a satisfactory mantra to live by. However, it wasn’t until I went to Ina University of Education that I found the limiting nature of saying. So with plenty of training thorough late night essays I changed my procrastinating philosophy to

“Anything I can do today will be done better if I do it tomorrow.”
Notice the difference. Instead of just procrastinating I am actually procrastinating with a purpose of doing it better tomorrow. It was this attitude that saw me through Ina University of Education with a healthy A+ average.

Even now I am procrastinating by writing this blog. You see at the moment it is almost halfway through the school year which means the customary Mid Year Reports are just around the corner. Deep down I know I should be doing the reports but I can’t be bothered. So instead of working painstakingly on my reports I come up with lame excuses and activities to do instead. Why should I have to do my jobs for work in my personal time? I have nothing on tomorrow night so I will do them then?` My husband such a boy on the lounge that is messy, better clean it up! Perhaps I should write a blog on how to procrastinate. The stark reality is that my reports are due in one week and I have yet to start.

As a Counselor and Educational Consultant, I have 6 classes of thirty students. This effectively means I have to produce 180 individual, interesting and relevant comments about the students I teach. Yeah right!!! I have never been a fan of the report. No matter where I’m on duty, I have had to produce a written report twice a year for every one of my pupils, counselee or even my clients. Reports are not easy to write. They require hours of painstaking writing and editing just to get them to a stage where the child is not devalued and I have managed to say what needs to be said. In the old days school reports were easy. A reporter, observer, even counselor and psycholog could write what they wanted without fear of angry parents, lawsuits or even dismissal. In fact writing a report was seen as an art form with what I am doing their very best to come up with something creative and memorable.

WINSTON CHURCHILL’S school reports are an excellent example and have actually been on display at a museum in England recently..“Weak”, was how his master at St George’s School described nine-year-old Churchill’s understanding of geography. The behaviour of the future British PM was also a problem: “Troublesome . . . latterly has been very naughty.” This got worse over time, with another report claiming that young Winston “cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere”, and that he was “so regular in his irregularity that I really don’t know what to do”. But Churchill was not the only person to suffer at the hands of his teacher.

Abila Al Hariri’s (writer) parents were told: “She has set herself an extremely high standard, which she has hard to maintain.”
The headmaster of Pasundan Senior High School assessed me thus: “She has glaring faults, and they have certainly glared at us this term.”
Fry’s English teacher was even more brusque: “English: bottom, rightly.”

John Lennon’s teacher offered one of the greatest quotes of the 20th Century in describing him as “Hopeless . . . certainly on the road to failure.”
My all time favourite report must go to former British MP Michael Heseltine. His report was neatly articulated by Ben MacIntyre at The Times in 2007. I have put in the full quote for maximum impact. “He is rebellious, objectionable, idle, imbecilic, inefficient, antagonising, untidy, lunatic, albino, conceited, inflated, impertinent, underhand, lazy and smug.” I particularly like “albino”. The report writer has plainly lost it. Mere invective cannot adequately express the depth of his contempt for young Heseltine. He needs a word that is completely out of the ordinary; he reaches out and in desperation he clutches . . . “albino”. THE TIMES 2007.

Today however, writers must write their reports in code or cleaver euphemisms to get the message across. Nowadays sometime writers or peoples are not allowed to be creative, honest or even truthful about the real situation that happening. Some people today are too precious and protected. They can play up in the classroom, act the fool in the corridors, fail to complete work in on time, treat others with disrespect but when another goes to explain this in their report they are somehow above the behaviour they exhibit in everyday life.

Take John Lennon’s report comment from above.
“Hopeless . . . certainly on the road to failure.”

We each offer a sly snigger at this comment because we know the outcome. We assume that the teacher got it wrong. However, at that time Mr Lennon may have been on the road to failure and may have been a rat bag in class. Perhaps it was this honest, no nonsense report that turned him around. So, today as a young mother, housewife and living on duties on my career way, I must write with the code of an Israeli spy. Each sentence must be created to provide parents with an insight into their child at school, without devastating the precious child. Hahaha :D

Take a standard comment like “Cody is very lively in class”. For my reports this actually means – the rowdy little so and so never shuts up.

Another I like to use is the positive “Rebecca has potential.” This can be loosely translated into either – she’s bone idle or she’s quite thick.

To help with your children’s reports I have put together a list of some of the coded statements that teachers may use. Conveniently I have also put in the correct meaning
just to help those who don’t understand teacher talk.

“A born leader” — Runs a the school gang

“Easy-going” — Bone idle

“Good progress” — You should have seen it a year ago

“Friendly” — Never shuts up

“Helpful” — A creep

“Reliable” — narks on his friends

“Expresses himself confidently” — Impertinent

“Enjoys physical education” — A bully

“Does not accept authority easily” — Dad is in prison

“Often appears tired” — Stays up all night watching television

“A rather solitary child” — He smells

“Popular in the playground” — Sells lollies in the playground

I hope this has provided a little help for when your children finally get to the stage of reports. Alternatively go and check your own reports and see if you can de-code some of the sentences that didn’t fit right at the time. I won’t be doing that. Instead I will be doing two things. Firstly, I will be working on refining my procrastination skills. I think there is room for men to move towards the nirvana of procrastination – procrastinating before procrastination. This is essentially putting off even making an excuse for not doing that job. My aim is to eventually develop pre-procrastination into an art form. Secondly, I am about to head off for a long run. As my wife says the only thing I don’t procrastinate on is my running. I AM right.