Prepoceros

[UPDATE: Video version here. Same story, a few more details.]

I’m subbing for an LSAT class this morning, and I only found out yesterday, so I haven’t prepped the lesson very well. I really needed to sleep tonight, but even though I went to bed right at midnight for what would’ve been a not-quite-adequate seven hours of sleep, I tossed and turned (not even thinking about LSAT or anything in particular, just unable to sleep) and didn’t drift off until around 2:00.

Now I’m up early, as you can see, but not by choice. I just had the most awful nightmare I’ve had in months. Most of the dream was a long, slow story that was of course quirky, but not very emotionally charged. But then all of a sudden things went all to shit and the last few minutes shot from boredom to confusion to worry to terror. I woke up right before I found out just how imminent my death was, but as I was waking up, the dream rewound itself and replayed the last minute or so, and this time IT WAS WORSE.

I’m going to try to go back to sleep now, though I don’t know how productive that will be, as my first alarm is set to go off in half an hour. Though I feel awake at the moment, I know that I’m nowhere near well-rested, and I can’t even imagine starting my day, not to mention teaching, on the sleep I’ve had.

If you’re looking for a present to get me (not that you would be, since Christmas is still 4 months away and my next birthday more than 10), I would appreciate a pair of those nifty noise-cancelling headphones pleasethanks.

I am easily distracted, especially by noise. If people are talking around me, or cars are driving by, or there’s music playing somewhere, I can. not. think. Most of the time I don’t need to think very hard, so it doesn’t bother me all that much, but some of the work I have this semester* is complex enough to require more than half of my attention. Even in the “quiet study areas” of the library there is enough noise and movement to annoy the crap out of me when I’m trying to concentrate.

*** Several days pass ***

Now that I’ve thought about it a while, I’m not sure I can blame it on the noise. I think I’m just distractable in general, and I’m still trying to figure out what sorts of things affect my focus level, especially after Sunday, when I could suddenly concentrate much better than usual for no apparent reason. Is it food? Caffeine? Sleep (or deficiency thereof)? Temperature? Other environmental factors?

I feel like every day is an experiment and I should be recording and analyzing this data. The sticking point is that “focus level” isn’t exactly quantifiable, but I could keep a journal of my qualitative assessment of how I’m doing. Hmmm.

Gawd. I can’t decide whether I should be disgusted with myself for being so self-involved or whether I should have started this earlier, as it’s clearly no one’s job but mine. I also can’t decide whether the second ‘whether’ in the previous sentence is appropriate and/or necessary.

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* viz, Physics lab reports, some Analysis proofs, and Greek anything

When I go to YouTube and pull up the page with all my subscriptions on it, I have to flip back through 54 videos before I get to the ones I’ve seen. This is more than two days of videos, an eternity in YouTubia.

Until recently I’ve kept up with video-watching almost religiously, to the detriment of a few other activites. I’m subscribed to 44 “Channels,” about half of which are reasonably active (posting at least once a week) at the moment, so I get about twenty videos a day. I watch maybe three-fourths of them. But lately…zero fourths. I do miss it, but goshdarn it, I don’t have time!

What a lapse. I’ve already cut waaaaay down on my blog-reading, not by choice but because I never get around to it. It’s sad, in a way: I feel like I’m missing out on a lot, like interesting news and discussions, various people I e-care about, and of course pictures of puppies. Who knows, maybe soon I’ll stop browsing the interweb altogether. I can’t even imagine…

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P.S. I do NOT like being up this late. I want to have gone to bed two hours ago. I have these grand plans to go to bed around midnight, but then somehow they always go slowly awry. Ugh.

Despite my low expectations [see: yesterday’s whine-o-rama], today was a wonderful day, the best I’ve had in weeks. I proctored two tests, during which I got an amazing amount of work done, and taught one fabulous lesson*.

I felt strangely clear-headed and awake the whole day. I could focus for more than ten minutes at a time, and what’s more, I actually *wanted* to work on my lab report. I haven’t wanted to do schoolwork in a long, long time. I mean, theoretically, somewhere in my head, the subjects I’m learning seem fun, but every time I’ve sat down to actually complete an assignment, especially something open-ended like a paper, I’ve gotten this overwhelming feeling of distaste and frustration and omg-what-can-I-possibly-do-to-get-out-of-this.

I had to completely rewrite about two-thirds of the report. Composed in my usual “foggy” state of mind, it was full of mistakes and disorganized half-thoughts. Before, it had looked easy enough from a distance, but every time I tried to make progress I got all confused and turned around and couldn’t get hold of the big picture.

But today! What had earlier seemed like a daunting, complex task suddenly broke down into obvious steps. Some of the steps required careful thought, yes, but the problem wasn’t insoluble. I knew this stuff couldn’t possibly be as hard as the time and confusion I’d spent on it would’ve suggested. Sweet Jesus, I have half a brain left in me. Hallelujah.

Sorry, I know I’m over-dramatizing, as is my wont, but do you know how this feels? To feel yourself getting dumber every day, unable to will your lazy brain to complete even the simplest tasks? To stare at an assignment for a class you should love and find yourself wishing you were anywhere else? To realize that the reason you’re not doing your schoolwork is that you “just don’t like doing things that are hard”**? And then, all of a sudden, to have bestowed upon you a great clarity of mind, descending from out of the blue? Motivation. Energy***. FOCUS. Wow. Wowdy-wow-wow.

I don’t know what this is, but I like it. I credit the Nutella*^.

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* Woo trig! Woo anything-but-the-SAT, really. Consistency is nice, but getting a chance to teach actual *concepts* (not just tips and tricks) and make up my own “lesson plan” and practice problems every once in a while is a breath of fresh air.

** I realized this a couple days ago. It’s a stupid, stupid, feeling, and not one that anyone would ever sympathize with. “Oh, you don’t like doing hard things? Awww, poor baby, let me rub your feet.” Right. Ugh, gross. I’m hoping I was mistaken, or that this can change.

*** I was also surprised at how strong I felt today, and how much energy I had. This evening, at the end of a long day, I walked all the way across campus and back carrying my purse, backpack, and laptop…with a spring in my step. I even swapped my purse (worn across my body, under my backpack) and my laptop bag (outside my backpack) without dropping anything, *without taking off my backpack*, without even breaking stride. This is usually impossible for me.

*^ Two footnotes here. First, this morning Wendy made me an English muffin with Nutella and bananas for breakfast. It was scrumptious and, apparently, magical. Second, I’m not sure whether to capitalize ‘Nutella.’ It’s a proper name (not in the dictionary), but the logo is written with a lowercase ‘n.’ As you’ve seen by now, I’ve decided that the logo is just a picture and have chosen to stick with big ‘N.’ This is all relevant to your life somehow, I’m sure.

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EDIT (3:56) — A minute ago, as I was about to drift off to sleep, I reflected on today’s strange state of mind and thought, “Gosh, wouldn’t it suck if I had a brain tumor?” There you have it, folks: proof that I can twist ANYTHING into something about which to worry irrationally. Dammit, now I’ll never get to sleep.

DISCLAIMER: If you don’t want to read another gripey post, you should leave now. Go look at pictures of people stacking stuff on their cats or something.

I swear I’m not always this grouchy. I write more when I’m in a bad mood, is all.

It’s three weeks into the semester, and I feel drained. I don’t have time for anything but school and work. Whenever I do take a break to browse blogs or play piano or whatever, I’m crushed by guilt, because of course there are always twenty other things I should be doing at that moment. But the guilt doesn’t encourage me to get back to work, oh no. That would be too useful. Instead I retreat farther into whatever procrastinatory thing I’m doing, so that maybe for a little while I can forget about all those things waiting to be done and just occupy my brain with some sudoku or an interesting science article. Instant gratification? Absolutely. But in the meantime nothing happens except that every deadline creeps that much closer.

I’ve just realized that tomorrow, which I thought would be a semi-free day, will actually be fairly long—10+ hours of tutoring, proctoring, grading, and of course driving. I leave the house at 10:30 and won’t get back until at least 9:00. And then on Monday school starts again, and I’m teaching Monday night, yada yada.

I feel even yuckier about it because I have the specter of this lab report hanging over my head. Whenever I have a big writing project due, it absolutely consumes my life for days or weeks at a time. I spend nearly all of my time “working on the paper,” though I actually make little progress day-to-day. If this report isn’t finished tomorrow (though I don’t know where I’ll find the time)…I don’t know. Bad things will happen. But then, bad things would happen (are happening) if I didn’t have it finished today. And before that it HAD to be done yesterday. And before that it HAD to be done on Thursday. And before that it HAD to be done before Labor Day. You get the idea. Not only does the report not get done, everything else doesn’t get done along with it. I have a lab report due every two weeks for the rest of the semester. No plan yet on how to deal with this, besides the standard “try harder.”

So what, then? What is it that I want?

A day off? I just *had* two whole days off over the long weekend, and I managed to fritter those away without accomplishing much of anything.

A lighter homework load? I don’t even have a bachelor’s degree, so school is not optional. The work required of me right now is probably the least rigorous I can get without “transferring” to the University of Phoenix.

To work less? I love my job; I’m not quitting. True, I could take on fewer students. I need to learn how to say no—I do tend to bite off more than I can chew, but who doesn’t want to feel needed? This is the busiest season of the year, and we have lots of students who need tutors. I guess they don’t all *need* tutoring, but they’re paying for it, and “getting into a good college” is vitally important to many high schoolers(’ parents).

More hours in the day? Actually, yes. That would be lovely, thanks.

So I don’t know what I want, except that I want not to feel like this all the damn time. Not to feel like my life is rushing by, opportunity after moment after simple pleasure, and I’m missing out on even the scraps of free time I *could* have because I’m always buried in some escapist retreat, trying to forget that my life even exists, even as chance after chance slips away from me through my own inaction.

Does that make sense? I feel this very acutely, though I’m having trouble putting it into words. Basically, I’m frustrated that I’m too busy to do the things I want to do, but instead of gritting my teeth, doing my work, and enjoying whatever time is left over, I waste so much time trying to escape reality that I (1) ensure that I will *never* have any “real” free time and (2) continue to irreparably muck up every opportunity I’m given. Time is flying. Flying flying flying. I want it not to fly; I want it to drag. My life is short enough as it is.

It’s silly, wanting so badly for time to move more slowly that I fail to actually *live* in the time that I have. But that’s me, that’s how I roll. I…I don’t know what to say to that. I realize that I should make the best of what I have, but…if I think about it too much I get to thinking about death again, and that only leads to despair.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. —Carl Sandburg

The part about other people isn’t incredibly relevant to my situation, but “time is the coin of your life”? That…that’s it. That’s what I feel. That’s what hits me in the gut and leaves me curled up on the floor. Time time time. Life is short. I rail against this (when I have time to think about it, which is less often these days), and I cannot deal with it. It is slowly driving me insane. Dramatic? Yes, yes it is. Judge me; I don’t care.

[snip!]

Here lay yet another whiny rant about how frustrated I am with myself. I’ve just now gotten up in the middle of the night to excise it from this post. Being lazy and undisciplined doesn’t give me the right to moan about it to the world (all three of you). If you’re subscribed to the feed, you might see the original version along with this one—apologies.

ANYWAY.

Let’s throw in a bit of silliness to lighten the mood, yes? If you are, as I am, an embracer of nerd* culture and all things nerdy, you may be interested in the nerd-off going down over at ScienceBlogs. (Follow the link, find one post with the word ‘nerd-off’ in it, and there’ll surely be links to others.) Thems some nerdy folks over there, for serious. Love it love it.

How did I score on the nerdiness test? Well…

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* If you’re a big believer in the nerd/geek/dork trichotomy, you may take issue with the term “nerd culture.” Pity this isn’t your blog.

Steve Irwin is dead. He was 44.

When I first read this story (three minutes ago), I thought it must be a hoax; I mean, a stingray barb through the chest? Really? But then I saw it on CNN.com (Breaking News!), so…I guess it’s true.

I’m stunned. He’s dodged so many lions and crocodiles that I’d thought the man was immortal. The people at CNN apparently weren’t expecting this, either. Instead of a proper obituary like they usually seem to have pre-written and ready to go whenever some famous person dies, they’ve thrown up a bullet-point list of facts about Steve and his career. (The page might have changed by the time you see it.)

Crikey. We’ll miss you, Steve.

I’m feeling a bit better this morning, though I woke up late (after 11). I think the less I look around my wreck of a living room, the better off I’ll be.

Last night I had a weird dream. I mean, I have weird dreams every night, but this one was sort of funny, so I thought I’d share.

The first part of the dream wasn’t all that interesting (to anyone but me), but in the second part I was at some sort of camp where our “homework” was to switch into someone else’s body, read a book, and then write a report about it. Whose body did I get? Ann mf-ing Coulter’s. I know, I know. I was freaking out, too, especially when it seemed I might not be able to get back out. I was thinking of cutting her hair short and dyeing it black, but the dream changed before I got around to it.

There was more after that about running a race in slow motion (but I could fly, so that wasn’t too bad) and having to pick a date for the prom, except that all the candidates were dogs. (I don’t think I was a dog, but all the dogs seemed to be dogs sometimes and people other times, so perhaps I was.) Then I met the Chinese emperor and did a flip to show off (I could still fly), which apparently is NOT OKAY in China, so that didn’t go well.

Anyway, the part that sticks with me is the mortifying thought that I might have to spend the rest of my life in Ann Coulter’s body. Explaining to everyone I meet that no, I’m not a venom-spewing, hate-filled Harpy, I just look like one…would get old really quick.

This’ll be a quick one, I promise. I just would like to state for the record that I’m feeling horrible and quite disgusted with myself at the moment.

[snip]

What used to follow the intro above was not “a quick one,” but rather several hundred words’ worth of moaning and bitching about my day off and its lost potential. While writing it, I decided that despite what a crappy job of getting-my-shit-togther I’d done over the last twelve hours, wallowing publicly in the quagmire-that-has-been-my-day would probably do more harm than good.

All you need to know is that I’ve eaten quite a lot today, most of it horrible, and that the floor of my apartment is much worse off than it was this morning, to the point that Sammy can’t make his way across the living room any more and has to go through the kitchen instead. It seems as though every bad habit I’ve ever had has come roaring back today.

Today was my first day off (no school, no work) in a couple of weeks. Tomorrow I’m scheduled to work eight hours straight (proctoring one exam, teaching two lessons). Monday I’ll be at my parents’ house, and on Tuesday school starts again, with many things due. Two weeks into the semester. Two. Weeks.

I’m going to bed. Tomorrow has to be a better day.

You know what’s almost* as fun to read as a real post? That’s right! A post explaining why there aren’t any real posts. This right here? That’s what this is.

I have two whole posts written out in my head, you see, and I really do mean that—I’ve even worked out most of the wording. I haven’t had time to type anything up for the last four or five days in a row because I’ve gotten home after dark every night and had more homework (and workwork) than time. Today I got home “early” at around 7:45, and yet, five hours later, I have nothing to show for my evening except a thrice-walked puppy, a load of laundry, and a half-clean bathroom. Now that it’s getting late, I won’t even have a full night’s sleep to show for it, either.

I’ll try not to bore you with whiny details, but I’m frustrated by my aversion to “doing things,” even THINGS I LIKE TO DO. I like blogging. I was excited about what I was going to write tonight—I thought it up while I was walking Sam, and it seemed like a good fit for today and possibly even interesting to people who are not me. And yet. I’ve been “about to start writing” for the last three or four hours. Ugh. Bed. This three-day weekend can’t come soon enough**.

EDIT: Sorry for the excessive grouchiness. Today has been an up-and-down, emotional sort of day, mostly for reasons beyond my control. I did have a lovely sandwich, though.

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* Slight exaggeration.

** I have deleted and rewritten this sentence several times. Looking forward to things upsets me; I feel as though I’m wishing the future would be here now, which, in my current state of mind, is about the most horrible thing I can imagine wishing for. I feel like I’m jinxing myself by writing it down.