I did the laziest thing I have ever done in my whole life today. 

Today, I received my graduation audit, which tells me which requirements I’ve fulfilled, which ones I haven’t, and how many units I need to graduate.  The audit told me that I need six units to graduate.  Which- great!  Six units is very few!  Only two classes!  Very very few!  So few, in fact, that it is not enough to keep me registered as a full time student.  Full-time studentness requires nine units.  Full-time studentness is also a pesky graduation requirement.  So somehow, through my overzealous taking of classes over the past eight quarters, I am poised to graduate with three extra units. 

But! Wait!  I have a paper for an old class that is still outstanding.  (In law school, nothing is ever really “due,” so much as it is in a state of “perpetual extension.”)  Old class is worth….3 units.  Units I will not receive if I don’t write the paper.

You can see where this is going, yes?  I emailed the professor of old class and asked if he would mind terribly if I, um, withdrew.  Ex post.  Waaaaay ex post.  “You see,” I wrote, “I have kind of a lot of things to wrap up before graduation [lies!  Damned lies!  I have nothing to do but watch all of Season 2 of Lost on DVD!  Which to *me* is important, but I doubt you’d be convinced!] and I’m pretty sure that if I did write the paper the quality would end up being pretty low [truth!  Total truth!  I would be phoning it in on this one!  It would be crap!] so I was thinking that, with your permission, it would be prudent [because lawyers love using the word “prudent”] for me to withdraw rather than submit a sub-par paper.”

“Sure,” he replied.  Which I think translates to “you mean I don’t have to grade your 35 page paper that is now over a year overdue?  Sweet!”

So I withdrew from a class.  A year later.  To avoid writing a paper.  Anal-retentive high-achieving high school me would be horrified, but lazy adult me is elated.  My spring break prospects just got a whole lot brighter.