A new cure to last-minute studying: Study at school.

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A new cure to last-minute studying: Study at school.

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Have you ever found yourself to be conquered by different temptations while studying at home? It seems everything at home are more appealing when you're spending hours and hours of time attempting to finish an assignment. The television, the fridge, iPods, the big comfortable bed, MSN, and a more recent and yet powerful contender: Facebook. I will admit it here and now -- Sometimes when I study, I lie on my bed with my laptop typing essays with the presence of Facebook and about half the population of the earth talking to me on MSN. Right beside me would be a can of fizzy drink (which I took out of the fridge), my iPod is plugged to the dock speakers playing rock songs.

Staying at home trying to work out assignments under this situation is almost like diffusing a time bomb with 20 people tickling you at the same time -- it's almost virtually impossible. People have accepted this multi-tasking method of studying in high school, but now that we're in University, things changed a bit. For one thing, unlike most Canadian high schools, Universities enforce a strict no-plagiarism policy, which means the traditional method of "sharing" (otherwise known as "copying") homework is of course no longer acceptable.

Surely, we have to start depending on ourselves now. But how?

When I got off class yesterday, I had a thought: If I am going to waste so much time surrendering to different temptations at home, how about staying at school and force myself to get something done? So I did, until 1 a.m. in the morning.

Now you may be thinking: the people who are still at SFU this time at night are probably either geeks or pairing up to look for an empty slot in the washroom. However, we've got this big and beautiful campus in a city with a population of 12, why not make good use of it and stay on the 3rd floor and do something productive (for those people pairing up in search for empty washrooms -- I am not talking about that kind of production)? Chances are, people are staying up late at night playing with computer games anyway. Why not convert that energy into power and study in a campus that doesn't close at mid-night?

Surely the temptations will still be there, but at least you won't go to the fridge every 5 minutes or fall asleep on the bed for 5 hours. I went on Facebook sometimes, and surely half a billion people would still look for me on MSN. However, it's easier to resist that temptation at school than at home. Moreover, you'll want to focus on your priorities first and not do anything else if you're still at school at 1 in the morning. During that 5 hours, I've got two essays done and read a couple of online articles, which is spectacular as I never get anything done at home.

Give it a try. Well, it worked for me.

(This article is written in my bedroom, with me on the bed with my laptop, iPod playing Third Eye Blind songs at the background and MSN conversation windows popping up every 5 minutes. It's tough, I tell you.)