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The Art of Juggling Marques Schwartz Professor Pierre English Department
Juggling can be quite a challenging task.
There are so many things that need to be processed at the same time.
When I began college this semester, I thought I knew how to juggle pretty
well. I was wrong.
Incoming freshman, I will describe to you the poor choices I had made,
how the choices came about, their regrettable consequences, and how I resolved
the issue. Read carefully, incoming
freshman, for if your situation resembles what mine was, then the content of
this paper is definitely worthwhile.
Before we begin, I shall tell you briefly about my life before I went to
prison. I had graduated from Sussex
Hamilton with the class of 1998. I
was sure I wanted to enroll in college, but I didn’t know which
college or for what degree. For
these reasons I thought it best to take a year off, work, save money, and figure
out why I want to go to college.
When a year was up I still didn’t know why I wanted to go to college.
I considered taking a second year off, but then I thought I’d never go.
I was financially unprepared for a four to eight year school commitment,
and I still didn’t know why I wanted to go to college.
In this way I entered college full-time in the fall semester of 1999.
To begin, let me say that I never intended and fully regret being
imprisoned. You see, since I
didn’t have the financial resources I thought I would have saved by the time I
entered college, I deemed it necessary that I would need to work full time
during college in order to pay and save money for the semesters now and a couple
of years ahead. So on
It is this period of my life that I call my time-prison—that’s
right, my time-prison.
Working full time and going to school full time had proven to be… a
nightmare. As I had things planned,
my life would be nothing but wake up, work, school, sleep, wake up, work,
school, sleep, wake up… This
strict pattern allowed me seven hours of sleep and one hour of leisure every
day—no time for any variation. I
had not one hour to spare from this all week.
My life became completely scheduled, programmed, systematic, solitary,
lonesome, isolated, enclosed, caged… Thus,
my time-prison.
To make this already unpleasant situation worse, things did not go as
well as planned; things did not go well at all.
You see, school demanded more time than I had calculated into my strict
schedule. So I had to vary my
schedule, and as stated above, there was no
time for any variation.
So I had to cut time in any way I could.
So I was forced, against my nature (as I am most concerned with my
health), to make very unhealthy choices. I
stopped stretching. I stopped
running. No more breathing
exercises. Remember food?
And sleep… I averaged two
hours of sleep per night, sometimes four hours, sometimes no sleep at all.
I remember how I had to repeatedly make choices like, “I have thirty
minutes to spare. Which is the
healthier choice, to eat a little or sleep a little today?”
At first I just became light-headed, lethargic, irritable, unfocussed,
and hungry. Quickly I became ill
(which is unusual for I most always enjoy great health), and I lost eight pounds
in one week. It was hell.
This is what it was like to live in the tormenting time-prison of my own
ignorant design.
I was, of course, determined to break out of prison.
I explored various methods, options, offers, and such to escape.
Successfully, I discovered methods and offers that enabled me to work
only about ten to twelve hours per week (
So, incoming freshman, what helpful lessons can we learn from my ignorant
design? Although now obvious, this
is perhaps my most valuable lesson to be learned: Don’t enroll in both school
full time and carry a full time job. If
you must do both, do one part time. Unless,
of course, you found my description of time-prison pleasing…
Further, make sure you make plenty of time for friends and fun!
You are, after all, living you life—so
live it (1998, Smith)!
The health of your social relationships will deeply impact your emotional
well being. I understand it can be
difficult to get to know your fellow students at a community college.
Often your only chance to get to know the people you sit next to is the
short three-minute talks before and after each class.
I highly recommend participation in a sport and/or extra-curricular
activity. It will give you an
excellent chance to get to know some interesting people, as well as make you
feel “connected” with the school.
Ultimately, incoming freshman, it is your decision to accept my advice or
to reject it. In conclusion,
consider the following, which was told to me be a wise man: “The fool never
learns from his mistakes. The
intelligent man does learn from his mistakes.
The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”
Which role best suits you?
By,
Marques Schwartz Works Cited Smith,
J. (July, 1999). Personal interview. |