How To Do Your Homework

Preface: I am a grad student during the summer, working on a Master’s in Music Education with a concentration in French horn performance. This is less glamorous than it sounds. It sounds like I’m spending a ton of money on something I should have done 10 years ago? Yeah, that’s how I hear it, too. I love horn, but I have not played lately because of health issues. All classes in the Master’s program are considered “accelerated”, cramming the usual semester into 4-5 weeks. They emphasize this ahead of time, so you forfeit your right to whine about the workload. Boo. While it’s been fun, it’s also been…”fun”. But it’s getting done. I am dead set on balancing this endeavor with the need to experience a lovely, rejuvenating summer with my family and friends. So naturally, I leave class work until the due date and do it all at the last minute.  #responsibleadult

As the expert, I will now share the important process of:

“How To Do Your Homework”

  1. Make coffee, do morning things, hug & kiss Hubby goodbye.
  2. Instruct children to please pick up their rooms and go play, because Mommy is working.
  3. Go into kitchen to get coffee mug first. Become concerned that the pile of dishes in the sink will attract ants. Do dishes.
  4. Head downstairs (split level) to office, with coffee. Scroll through Twitter, check Facebook, read The Skimm, play Crossy Road and Brain Dots on phone, because ‘all work and no play’…
  5. Break up argument between children in the laundry room. Notice that laundry needs “flipped over”. Do that.
  6. Upon returning from laundry room, look longingly at the lovely curled form of the horn on its stand, in the office. No. Not right now. Decide that it’s time to work.
  7. Play horn anyway. Marvel just a little that high C still comes out fine, after months off.  Gloat a tiny bit. Feel very happy and almost decide to text brass-people friends, but try to rein self back in and get to work. Actually open a text book.
  8. Discover that there are actually no less than five separate assignments due. Re-evaluate whether a Master’s degree is really that important.
  9. Untie, open, peel, and fix something for each kid, a minimum of 3-4 times.
  10. Realize that the correct Spotify station is essential for concentration, child noise-coverage, and ambiance. Spend 10 minutes deciding on which list and another 10 trying to find the one pair of earbuds left in the house that works.
  11. Sit down. Get back to work. Wait, where is coffee? Go find mug.
  12. Focus and complete the first of five assignments, like a boss.
  13. Play with hair. Wonder if French braiding own hair is still in personal skill set. Braid own hair, enjoying the fact that ‘dos like the popular girls at that 1992 Girl Scout camp are now finally within grasp.
  14. Swivel aimlessly in desk chair while playing with hair. See horn. Think of playing again but turn around to get back to work.
  15. Realize that coffee is cold. Realize that this whole routine has been going on for quite a while and only one out of five assignments are complete. Realize this is not ok.
  16. Respond to texts from Hubby, friend, and sister, and play new Monument Valley levels.
  17. Decide that now it’s very seriously time to do the other four assignments. But first, coffee.
  18. Heat up coffee in kitchen where the dog has found a My Little Pony toy to chew to bits. Clean that up.
  19. With coffee, half a grapefuit because breakfast never actually happened, and a new mindset to be productive, go back downstairs. Sit down, resolved to knock out those other four assignments. Right. Now.
  20. Blog about the process instead.

2 replies on “How To Do Your Homework”

  1. Lookit you and your bad self, rocking that high C! You own it, girl! …..now back to work. 😉

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