Prepoceros

I thought I was ready, but all of a sudden, when I sat down to register, I found myself groping wildly for something with which to distract myself—a not-unfamiliar feeling, but one that I usually associate with overdue papers and lab reports, not signing up for classes.

Long story short, it’s been 13 almost 16 hours. I’m really really good (or bad) at the distraction game. Since 11:00 this morning I have

1. Gone to Latin class. This doesn’t count as a distraction since it’s something I should have done anyway, but it happened after registration opened, so it makes the list.
2. Eaten lunch. Again, not a bad thing, but I could have registered before I ate.
3. Checked my email. Several times. In the last thirteen hours I have gotten all of one email. Damn, I *do* need to stock up on cialips, xavnax, and armbien.
4. Read all my Bloglines feeds. This is a brilliant meta-distraction, as it includes both Slashdot and BoingBoing, each of which are compilations of external links. Reading through all of them took about two hours.
5. Checked on the blogs I read that don’t have feeds. Ten minutes.
6. Read all the interesting-looking news stories at CNN.com.
7. Reread my own last ten blog entries.
8. Perused my website stats. Usually the traffic here increases 5–10% every month, but April is more or less even with March, month-to-date. Hmmm.
9. Noticed that three people have found Prepoceros by searching for “Caltech cannon” or “MIT cannon.” Did a Technorati search for “Caltech cannon” and read the first twenty or so blog posts that came up.
10. Bought two t-shirts.
11. Looked for dressier shirts on Amazon, because any place you can buy discount toasters, dog food, cell phones, and lawnmowers is bound to have cute shirts*.
12. Looked for shoes on Overstock.com. Learned that Overstock.com is a terrible place to look for shoes, unless you’re in the market for clogs. Cheap clogs, but clogs nonetheless.
13. Played a few rounds of “tear camelsheep to bits” with Sammy.
14. Eaten the other half of the tub of rainbow chip icing I started yesterday. Wondered why I felt sick to my stomach.
15. Debated going to fetch my iPod, which, according to the door tag the deliveryperson left behind, is apparently sitting in a FedEx depot 16 minutes away.
16. Decided I could wait until Monday.
17. Wandered over to the kitchen table, shuffled the schedule cards around a little more.
18. Designed and implemented a color-coding scheme using highlighters. This is a clever sort of distraction, IMO, as it’s close enough to the real assignment that I can convince myself I’m “working on it,” but inane enough to avoid any risk of productivity.
19. “Samson, would you rather live with a Physics major or a Linguistics major? Both? But Sammy, that means Mommy can’t take Greek. Don’t you think if would be fun if Mommy could read Greek? Me too, pumpkin, but it won’t all fit, see? Well, no, there’s no *law* that says I have to graduate in two years…”
20. Taken a three-hour nap, under the rationale that “sometimes your unconscious solves hard problems for you in your sleep.” This was just an excuse at the time, but when I woke up, there *was* an answer sitting right at the “front” of my mind: I need to see myself in a different role. (Scroll down to “Third Principle.”) But what role would that be? Whether this is actually part of a solution to the what-major problem or just a random association (I read the article earlier this week) remains to be seen. I don’t often wake up with clear, purposeful thoughts like that, so I feel like this might be worth something.
21. Walked the dog.
22. Fed the dog.
23. Eaten several handfuls of very stale pretzels. I’ll cook dinner after I register. Just like I’ll do my taxes after I register. And prep my next LSAT class after I register. And do research for my Women in the Ancient World paper after I register.
24. Read a first-person account of the World Sudoku Championship.
25. Rummaged through my garbage bags of not-yet-unpacked stuff, looking for my sudoku books. Didn’t find them.
26. Acknowledged that sudoku would not be a feasible distraction anyway, as it could take up an indeterminate amount of time, a la Minesweeper or Spider Solitaire. I removed all such “pointless” distractions from my repertoire several months ago. Baby steps.
27. Registered for an online puzzle game similar to the superfabulous MIT Mystery Hunt, which I’ve long admired as pretty much the awesomest thing ever. If you like puzzles as much as I do, or even half as much as I do, or even if you’re just curious, I’d love for you to join my team at The Puzzle Boat. (Team Name: prepoceros, Password: rhino) It’d obviously be easier if we were in the same geographic location, but if you want to log in and solve a puzzle or two sometime, that’d be great. It would take me years to do the whole thing myself, if I even could. Thems hard.
28. Checked mail again, Bloglines again, CNN again. World hasn’t exploded in the last four hours. Shocking.
29. Given Sammy a cookie and a belly rub because awwww, wook at mommy’s widdle shnookums wif his sweet widdle face.
30. Pondered the reasons behind the apparent mental block I’ve put on picking classes for next semester. Connected it to my inability to make decisions, and, of course, how life is short and I only get one shot at it and if I continue on in this wishy-washy way and never throw myself into anything with confidence then I’ll waste all my opportunities and nothing will ever become of me and I’ll lead a miserable life, grow old, and DIE full of regret.
31. Written and published a 1000-word post on the above topic—an absolute bog of self-pity and dreary inner monologue. Wallow wallow wallow. (Don’t bother scrolling down—it’s gone.) Anyway, there went another hour and a half.
32. Gone to Sonic for an ice cream sundae. Came back with mozzarella sticks and a strawberry limeade. The four guys in the car next to mine were so. baked. Dude, get the bacon toast thing. No seriously man, get the bacon thing I want the bacon. Like, with cheese. And toast. Okay? Seriously, dude. Dude. Seriously. I love bacon.
33. Realized that I haven’t washed my hair since Wednesday morning. Gross. Resolved to do so FIRST THING after I register.
34. Removed the post mentioned above. It was self-absorbed, whiny, and not even all that funny. Those of you who subscribe to my feed might still be able to read it. Sorry.
35. Considered replacing the deleted post with a quick five-liner about my trip to Sonic.
36. Decided instead on this behemoth. Three hours in, I realize that this is a vicious distraction. Have you made lists before? Because 37 things is A LOT OF THINGS**. But I can’t stop now and waste all that work…I’m so close.
37. Finished the goddamn list.

There, self. I did it. Happy? No, of course you’re not—you still haven’t registered. What’s that? You’re sleepy now and want to go to bed? Well no shit, it’s 3:30 in the morning. But you’re not going to bed until you pick classes, do you hear me? NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

[Edit (4:46 AM): HIST1378 POLS1336 POLS 1337 // ENGL3302 ENGL4305 LATN2301 MATH3333 MATH3338 PHYS3110 PHYS3111, bitches! It’s bedtime!]

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* Did you know that Old Navy has rescinded their 8-item-max fitting room rule? ’strue. You can waltz in there carrying 18 items and the salesdude won’t even blink as he says “Back again?” and unlocks your room. I think it might be because sometimes the people who walk in with 18 items end up buying 14 of those items, plus like five other things they see on their way to the front. Happened to a friend of mine. Friend of a friend.

** Three hours of early-morning list-making has done wonders for my diction. I do things. I like stuff. It is very good and fun and interesting. Before long I’ll be reduced to grunts and primitive hand gestures.

Tags: 37 Things, math & puzzles, school

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 15th, 2006 at 3:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.