Ashley George
Opinions Editor
ajgeorge@valdosta.edu

It’s that time of year again. Whether you call it crunch time, freak out time or just “blech,” the calendar has filled with surprising and previously unheard of assignments and projects that you could have sworn you had another month to do.
The worst part is everywhere you turn, no one seems to have any pity. Parents, if you call them, give you a “told you so” speech, professors give a shrug as they pile on even more assignments filled with things you just HAVE to know, and friends seem to be in the same sinking ship as you. And the deadlines loom closer and closer as a fresh wave of senioritis hits you for the summer days on the other side.
Before I get too melodramatic, I do have to point out that for some of us, but definitely not all; a lot of this was brought on by ourselves.  At least I, as a self proclaimed procrastinator, can say that I can think of days I could have gone to class and didn’t, trips I probably shouldn’t have taken, and times so many other things took priority over school work. What can I say? I have a life, and I swear I had just tons of time to work on things a week ago.
The obvious question is “What do I do now?” There’s tons of stuff to do and just no time to do it in. For me, after I had myself a nice cry and called my mom for her annual “you need to take care of business” speech, Iformed a plan.
First thing to do is calm down. There is a lot to do and none of it is going to get done if you feel too stressed to work on it. It might sound strange but take a break and do something to clear your head and prepare yourself for work.
Second thing to do is prioritize. Make a list and decide what the most important things are and concentrate on them. The hard truth is you might not get everything on the list done, so you need to evaluate your grades and decide what assignments have to take priority. Prioritizing is better than killing yourself trying to do everything at once and then doing a bad job because you stretched yourself to thin.
Third and final thing is to remember to take care of yourself, you need to eat-healthy things and not just 2 a.m. McDonalds runs, and sleep-more than two hours and do other basic necessities, or any work you do will be subpar at best.
This doesn’t come from any medical site or professional with a lot of titles after their name. It’s just from a sympathetic junior that’s been through one or two crunch times. Just remember that in a month you won’t be worrying about this. Take care of yourself and keep everything in perspective… or discover time travel and help out the rest of us.