The Do Whatever People

I quit.

I decided last night that I am just quitting life.

I tend to be very organized, very meticulous, my calendar is immaculate, and I get things done on time. I am certainly not the type who gets it all done weeks before, but I just make sure things get done. I stress over getting them done, I lose sleep if I have to, and I will do whatever it takes to get things done.

You give me deadlines, I meet them. I'm good at that. I'm really really good at that. And when it comes to school, it works. It works perfectly because I get things turned in, I follow the rules, and I ask questions to make sure I know how to follow the rules. Yes, I am the annoying student at times, but it gets the job done. I get the job done.

As of last night, I quit. The stress freak, upper organized, maniac of a woman is no longer here. She’s gone because she quits. As of last night, she just up and left and here's why...

Example One:

We had a paper due. Nothing new.

It was pretty extensive, lots of research needed, lots of intricate details in how he wanted it formatted. I work; I come home and barely get time to do anything before I am off to school. Not much time for homework, but of course I crammed this in, because that’s just what my upper organizational skills can do. They make it work.

I was running around frantic with class starting at 7pm. At about 5pm Rob's computer freezes. He is freaking out, I am freaking out, but nothing was lost so we just kept punching away. It’s now 6:40pm, we have to leave for class and Rob is still not finished. Mind you, he doesn’t work during the day. He had plenty of time and yet here he was, last min. and not finished. I finally just left for school without him. I have to be on time.

The catch? In order to get full credit for the paper, there is an online submission that has to be made. He went to submit around 8pm to find out that the submission closed at 7pm, right when class started. He started text messaging me frantically, and of course I started stressing for him but then again, in the back of my mind, I was doing the I told you so's.

Class ends at 10pm, he comes at 9:30pm. After class he goes up to the teacher to try and see what he could do. The teacher had made it perfectly clear that you had to turn in it online or you would get a zero. I'm waiting for the yelling, but no, he just tells Rob it’s ok and that he can turn it in when he gets home.

He just tells him its fine, its fine that you are late, you can still get credit.

Example 2:

I love Psychology. I'm good at things like that. I like the brain; I like the thought process behind it all.

We had a big test last week and so I made flash cards. I went through them and went through them, making sure I was prepared.

We had to leave for school at 4:30pm, I get home from work around 3pm, and that entire time I was trying to help Rob. He didn’t know them that well; it wasn’t making sense, so I tried to help. We went through those things so much; I made examples in real life so he could make the connection, and when we entered the parking lot he had them much better than he did before.

I wanted him to pass. Heck, we both wanted to pass. The last test we took we took late because of the wedding and the teacher put us in a room together, practically telling us to talk amongst ourselves. It made the test a lot easier for Rob. So for this test, I positioned my paper slightly closer to him, giving him a little help. I know, bad idea. Very bad idea. But I figure... his education is mine too, right?

We got the tests back on Monday and who gets the better grade? Rob. Yep, Rob did. It’s my passion, it’s what I’m good at, I coached him, and I let him cheat, and Rob gets the better grade. I love my life.

Example 3:

Anthropology. Probably the strangest course in the book and I honestly don’t get the point of it.

We have lots of papers due in that class, and lots of reading for those papers. Granted, Rob actually read the book for this one, but that was just the deal we had. He would read the book and I would do all the other homework for Political Science. It seemed to work just fine. He told me about the book, I pulled a couple random quotes to help my points, and I wrote the paper in a day. I just had to. There was no other time that I could do it, so I just had to cram it out in a couple hours.

He made it clear in the syllabus that yes, he would take late work, but that you would get points taken off for it. I edited Rob’s paper. I went through the entire thing and took stuff out, re-arranged things, perfected it. I kept bugging him about it because the day it was due Rob’s paper wasn’t finished. I know, surprised?

Class is on Tuesday. Wednesday it wasn’t done, Thursday it wasn’t done, but he finally finishes Friday. Friday he doesn’t turn it in, Monday he doesn’t turn it in, but finally he does in class on Tuesday. It’s now a week late. It’s been clearly stated that you will get points off for that.

We got our papers back yesterday and who gets the better grade? Rob does. Of course it is Rob. Not only does it get a better grade than me, but he probably got the best grade in the class. 55 out of 50. The paper was a week late.

So I just decided to quit. There is no point caring so much when people actually get better grades when they don’t. So the stress, that doesn’t seem to get me anywhere.

I am done following the rules. I am done being the upper organized beauty that I once was, because people just hand free passes out left and right to those who just do whatever. I want to be a do whatever person. Because it's the do whatever people who end up finishing first anyways, and us stress freaks are on the side of the road with the heart attacks wondering what went wrong.

So I just quit.