It’s 11:59 p.m., my deadline is at midnight and I still haven’t written my blog post

Answering an email usually takes anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes, yet somehow, more often than not, just the prospect of even opening the Gmail app on my cracked iPhone 5 sends an existential dread to envelope my entire body.

Because just reading that email — let alone answering it — means I have one more thing to do.

Thus is the life of a WAIP student.

Nobody comes to WAIP without being the kind of person who constantly has just a little too much on his or her plate. Naturally, the program attracts overachievers (or at least, people who, in theory, could be overachievers. I’m honestly not sure if I’ve even filled out that internship contract yet. It was due May 20. Sorry, Katy).

So, that email — whether it’s plans for something innocuous like a happy hour, or something ~important~ (I think happy hour might qualify for both categories, personally) — represents one. more. thing. And not just any “thing,” but the Thing™ — always looming, constantly nagging.

Between work, a capstone paper that I may or may not have actually started, commitments at home, commitments in Columbus, writing blog posts and trying to find time to finally schedule that happy hour, the Thing™ is never short on material.

But don’t worry. I wouldn’t want to spend my summer any other way, and I’m sure my 13 roommates feel the same.

There’s a certain beauty to being surrounded by people who also choose to spend their summers slightly stressed out and never with more than a few hours to spare. Because no matter how crazy things get this summer, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing and I’m surrounded by people in the exact same boat.

I’m constantly busy, but so are my roommates, and so is the other townhouse of WAIP-ers. And it provides not only a common bond, but also a source of energy and hope — the energy and hope to finally get around to doing that Thing™.

We’re all in this together.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go answer that email. I hope they don’t notice that I’m responding at midnight.

— Nick Roll