Student promises to be productive this reading week

By Joie Atejira, February 14 2017 —

As reading week approaches, University of Calgary students are pumped to finally have a whole week off to relax and run away from their responsibilities with only a slight tinge of guilt.

However, third-year psychology student Chelsea Thomas swears she’ll use her time wisely this semester. She purchased a Kate Spade day planner filled with colour-coded lists entirely dedicated to her reading break schedule. Thomas spent five hours picking out sticky note tabs from Chapters for the planner. She also has a 20-page paper due tomorrow.

“I have each day completely booked,” Thomas said. “I’m so good at time management.”

Thomas is 100 per cent sure she will make this break productive.

“I’ve written down every chapter I have to read and every lesson I want to go over,” Thomas said. “By writing them down and having tick boxes beside them, there is no way I won’t complete each task.”

Thomas also aims to balance her academics and fitness routine. She plans to engage in pilates, crossfit and Chris Hemsworth’s specialized Thor: Ragnarok workout.

“I am going to wake up at 6:00 a.m. to hit the gym before my day starts,” Thomas said while setting 10 alarms, each five minutes apart, starting at 5:55 a.m. “I will definitely not press snooze. There is literally no way I will not get up.”

Thomas also made time in her schedule to have some fun. Under her “de-stressing” list, an impressive enumeration of activities — wall-climbing, snowboarding, dog-sledding, figure skating, performing a one-woman musical set at the deserted campus and watching all of the Star Wars movies — is planned.

“As you can see, I’m a person who likes many things and is ready to take risks,” Thomas said, putting the finishing touches on her colour-coded schedule instead of finishing her paper due before the break. “I will do all of these things. What even is ‘procrastination’?”

Thomas said she will finally learn how to manage her time.

“Every reading break I’ve had always went by so fast,” Thomas complained. “I never set a schedule or wrote down lists before, so maybe that’s the reason why I never got anything done.”

Thomas also plans to schedule her future to ensure her life will go somewhere after graduation. Minimizing the window where she was writing her paper, Thomas displayed a list of activities that included, “hand in 50 resumes, purchase a shredder to dispose of PFO responses and learn to cope with extreme mediocrity.”

This article is part of our humour section.