When I was younger, my family was always around a half hour early to every single one of our sporting events because my dad grew up with parents who seemed to always be late to things. This made him very time conscious and overwhelmingly early at times. This pattern got instilled in me, which is possibly one of the best "problems" to have. But, sometimes being early is awkward, and sometimes being too time conscientious causes way too many problems.

Trying to fall asleep at night, I use the handy Bedtime app that comes on my iPhone. But as I plan out in my head what time I can afford to go to bed and how much time I need to get ready in the morning, the minutes disappear and the panic sets in. I know that I need approximately 7-9 hours asleep, 8-9 being my ideal, and I should probably get 10 hours tonight because I am sick and I don't want that to get worse. My brain rambles on and on as I lay my head on the pillow knowing that "in 25 minutes you should be dead asleep so that you get a full 8 hours and 24 minutes of sleep." My mind continues to wander down paths with no need to be traveled.

My friends make fun of me because when we went to our first women's hockey game I made us go 45 minutes early. Unbeknownst to myself, you don't really need to get there any earlier than about 15 minutes, and you still will get a very good seat. But my time consciousness made sit in the ice rink for more time than the actual players probably were on the ice.

Living on a big campus is a problem in itself. I want to be to my classes early, personally, I would enjoy about 10 minutes to set up my stuff and get everything in order. In my head, I start adding up the minutes. "30 minutes to get ready, 20 minutes to shower, 25-minute walk to class so that you don't rush, so you aren't dripping sweat. So that means if my class is at 10:10 and I need to print some slides beforehand I should probably leave at 9:20."

In all reality, it takes me about 20 minutes to walk to the printer in Carlson and it takes maybe 3 minutes to print, depending on the crowd. But, if I want to buy a bagel I can't forget I should schedule five minutes for that, even though I get there between classes so Gopher Express is dead.

While everyone tells me, "Having great time management skills is an awesome skill to have at your age!" or "Wow, you do better than most adults." But the numbers running through my head drive me crazy. I can't keep my brain quiet at night, and I have no trust in public transportation because well, what if the Light rail is running behind? What if I can't fit on that bus?

So maybe things could be worse, and maybe I need to learn that being a minute late one day will not kill me. But until I figure it all out, I will be counting the minutes. I will 15 minutes early to every event, at the least. And I will have to thank my dad for my talent of being too early to even things like parties and dances.