I hate to admit this, but ...

This is my last semester and, assuming all goes according to plan, I'll be graduating soon. So I figured it was time to confess all my sins. I don't want to glorify my wrongdoings by publicizing them; on the contrary, I'm hoping that coming clean will ease some of my gnawing guilt, while also serving as a cautionary tale of what not to do in college for all the pure, innocent freshmen out there. \nI confess that, for some of my classes, I actually did not do all the reading. I've always felt rather guilty about that, especially in the classes where I ended up getting a good grade anyway. I also regretted buying books and barely using them. To correct this problem, I merely quit buying some of the books. I still did some of the reading, but just by sitting in the bookstore with the unpurchased textbook. I don't think the staff liked this very much.\nPunctuality has been a great challenge for me, and I only seem to be getting worse with age. I've barged into class late, and I've turned in homework late. In fact, I'm submitting this very column late. On a few occasions, I even intentionally showed up at exams late to give myself more time beforehand to study.\nFrom the above paragraph, you have probably formulated the outlandish notion that I have a procrastination problem. I prefer to say that, in recognition of the axiom that work expands to fill the available time, I have simply chosen to start some of my papers the night before they were due. To be perfectly honest, I started nearly all of my papers the night before they were due, and some on the due date itself. My freshman year I went to a party even though a paper was due the next day. Several years later, realizing the error of my ways, I went to two parties the night before a paper was due.\nYou see, I haven't been a complete slacker. There have been times when I worked with great diligence and fervor. It's just that most of those times happened to fall between 1 and 3 a.m.\nBecause of one such post-11th hour repentance session, I once overslept and missed two classes. To compound my sins, instead of being remorseful, I was grateful for the extra sleep. Then there were the classes I attended in a soporific state, leading to fascinating though largely illegible handwriting developments. One of my roommates went a step further, admitting that she used to plan on using her 10 o'clock class as her "naptime." \n"I think I got an 'A,'" she added.\nNor is sleeping the only non-academic activity I have undertaken in class. I habitually did the crossword puzzle during one class, and defended it to myself as creative multi-tasking and effective time management. I have also written notes to classmates while simultaneously taking notes, leading to lines like "Monteverdi-Italian madrigal composer. Do you think our professor knows his fly is down?"\nWorst of all, from time to time I have succumbed to my most evil, hedonistic impulses: I have parked illegally. I felt sort of guilty about that until I got some parking tickets, whereupon my guilt rapidly morphed into indignation.\nSo kids, don't make the same stupid mistakes I've made. Get out there and make different stupid mistakes! I would dispense more sage advice, but I really ought to start writing my senior thesis. \nThen again, maybe it can wait a few more days.