{"id":5562,"date":"2022-07-11T19:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5562"},"modified":"2022-10-03T13:22:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T11:22:30","slug":"senior-slide-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5562","title":{"rendered":"Senior Slide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I was in school there was a thing called a \u2018senior slide\u2019. The concept here, in case you don\u2019t know, is that when the end is in sight, you slack off work and take a lackadaisical, carefree, \u2018you do it\u2019 attitude towards everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to employ this attitude at most times of the year. Typically it started after the first month of school and would last until everyone else would start slacking \u2013 around Christmas, before summer holiday. Surprisingly, it took me 6 years to graduate college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some years ago, something quite frankly rude happened. I decided (again, rudely) that my holiday (summer, Christmas, etc) would be better if I did my scheduled work before them and not after them. I don\u2019t know when this awful change in my personality occurred, but it\u2019s a personality failing I regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomorrow I am leaving for the Adriatic coast of Italy. I have twelve days of pasta, seafood, wine, and lounging to look forward to. And yet, for some reason, I have holed myself up to work on projects that need attention before I go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wouldn\u2019t bother me so much if it weren\u2019t for two things. First, I\u2019m supposed to live in the moment, be present, live my life, follow the deep philosophical entreaties of YOLO and \u201cdude, fuck it.\u201d And I\u2019m not. I\u2019m anxious and obsessed. This makes me decidedly less cool than I used to be. Assuming I was then. Second, it\u2019s so nice outside. The beer gardens are calling me, the wine gardens are calling me, gardens are calling me. And yet I hunch over my computer and work and write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I press myself forth with the knowledge that in something like 20 hours I\u2019ll be on a flight to Italy, my belt will be loosened and I will reject no beer in the airport. Moreover, this allows me to preach the rules of preparedness to my students. And I do this a lot. So you can imagine how much they love me. \u201cDo your work early and you can relax later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I think this is great advice. They think I\u2019m a dick. We\u2019re probably both right, but them more than me. I come clean about my subpar undergrad career. I want them to avoid the same past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose I\u2019m worrying the death of my old self here and there. Though the days when I was unprepared, lazy, and lackadaisical make me shudder now, the fact that they are gone and I am a different person does dearly imply the passage of time. What an asshole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what if I had a chance to run back about 30 years and have a little convo with the boy on senior slide at every opportunity. I\u2019d tell him: Hey, dumbo, get your work done now and you\u2019ll enjoy things more. I\u2019d go about some arguments and make some points, then I\u2019ll point to a future of a dragging start, to being crippled out of the gate. But if I know me, I would just look at myself now, wondering vaguely why this old version of myself (better looking) was burying me in advice I don\u2019t want and my young self would look at me and say, \u201cCome on, fuck it dude.\u201d   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was in school there was a thing called a \u2018senior slide\u2019. The concept here, in case you don\u2019t know, is that when the end is in sight, you slack off work and take a lackadaisical, carefree, \u2018you do it\u2019 attitude towards everything. I used to employ this attitude at most times of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/VietnamCombatArtCAT06DavidNFairringtonTimeout.jpg?fit=504%2C448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1rI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5564,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions\/5564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}