After a long day of classes, you finally make it back to your place. You take off your shoes, put on some comfortable sweat pants and get ready to start that homework you wish didn’t exist. You check each classes syllabus and try to determine what is due tomorrow and what can wait. Oh boy, that paper for your political science class is due tomorrow. You’ve been dreading that for weeks. Before you devote the remainder of your day to this paper, you decide to allow yourself a couple of minutes of freedom from homework. You check your Instagram and Twitter. That’s when you see it. That’s when the rest of your day is doomed to the land of procrastination.

All it takes is one little mention of it to distract you for hours upon hours. You see someone’s tweet about some show you’ve never seen but have always wanted to watch. It comes out of left field: “Just watched the last episode of Game of Thrones, wow so good!” tweets Jimmy from accounting class. You respect Jimmy, you think he’s a good guy, you value his opinion. Well, Game of Thrones has been on your to-watch list for quite some time. It wouldn’t hurt to look into where you could watch it online. This can’t take more than a couple of minutes, then it’s time to start that paper.

You make your way to HBO’s website. Wow, all of the episodes are on there. Oh, but you need to have an HBO subscription to watch them online. Do mom and dad have an HBO subscription? You’re pretty sure they do, they always talk about Game of Thrones. It couldn’t hurt to give them a call. You have been meaning to talk to them for a while, so it wouldn’t be too much of a waste of time. So you give the parents a call.

Twenty minutes or so later, you finish catching up with mom and dad. Everything’s going well at home and the family sends you their love. But most importantly, you now have the account information needed to get an HBO Go account. You check the clock on your phone. Okay, you’ve only pushed off this paper for about half-an-hour. That’s not too bad. You can get away with turning that thirty minute break into an hour one.

You create the HBO Go account and you’re in. Alright, this is pretty neat. You browse through some shows and movies available. You get to the coveted Game of Thrones page. Hmm, the first episode is only fifty minutes long. It couldn’t hurt to just watch one episode. You do only have one paper to write. It is only supposed to be two pages long, and that’s at most. You can get away with watching one episode, but just one. Then it’s time to get to work. So you press play.

Fifty minutes later, you are left in complete awe. Wow, this show is freaking amazing. You need to keep watching. Now. But wait, there was something you had to do. Oh yes, that political science paper. You exit the HBO Go website and open up a new word document.

Ten minutes later, you have your name and a title on the paper and that’s all. You’re finding it hard to focus. You just want to go back to watching Game of Thrones. That’s like political science, isn’t it? There are different kingdoms and people trying to take over the crown. Maybe you could relate that to your paper somehow. You know that’s a bit of a stretch, but you just really want to watch your new show. Okay, how about this: make an outline and you can watch another episode. That should work, right?

Wrong. On a piece of scratch paper, you write down nothing but roman numerals and the words introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion. But you don’t care. You’re watching Game of Thrones.

One whole season later, you finally look up from your computer. The clock reads 3:00 a.m. You look back at your paper. Name, title and then nothing. This paper is due in five hours, during your 8 a.m. class. You finally get to work.

You finish about an hour later and you feel decent about it. But you don’t really care. All that runs through your mind are these words: winter is coming.
Based on actual events.