Beginning a post with a description of how badly I’ve been procrastinating is getting redundant so I’ll just give you a statistical update:
Statistics for October 21, 2007:
Minutes studying for GRE: 0
Minutes watching Redskins game: 72
Minutes reading Huckleberry Finn when you told yourself you would only read a couple of chapters and then study for the GRE: 125
Minutes trying to start a new satirical blog about litblogs: 49
Minutes spent believing that Wordpress is run by Nazis: 9
Minutes deciding that you would try the new blog with Blogspot and not Wordpress: .3
Minutes spent trying to post a picture in the header of the new blog and not have it be frighteningly gigantic: 18
Minutes spent trying to spell frighteningly: .9
Minutes spent believing Blogspot is run by Nazis: 9
Minutes spent deciding that you don’t really have the time to keep up with a new blog: 2
Minutes spent noodling on the guitar: 17
Minutes wandering around looking out the window: 8
Minutes spent noodling on the guitar s’more: 14
Minutes spent giving self pep-talk to gear up for a five-mile walk with dog:
11
Minutes spent going on five-mile walk with dog: 0
Minutes spent looking for syllabus to see what to read for tomorrow: 6
Minutes spent doing assigned reading for tomorrow: 0
Minutes spent trying to come up with the next statistic: .8
Minutes spent checking comments and reading blogs: 70
Minutes wondering if my comments are arcane and awkward: 13
Minutes checking email: 2
Minutes responding to emails: 0
Minutes it takes dog to convince me to let him get on the couch: 1.8
Minutes it takes dog to take over couch and push me into a corner: 15
Minutes it takes to get every dog-hair out of house: 1,235,689,675, 869,638
Minutes being annoyed because there is something in my eye: 5
Minutes being amazed that the Redskins are winning: 32
Minutes feeling guilty that my team has such a politically incorrect name: 6
Minutes feeling guilty that my other team, the Braves, have such a politically incorrect name: 6
Minutes rationalizing that judging things as politically-incorrect is just another form of suppression: 9
Minutes spent wondering if that thing is truly out of my eye, it feels like it, but not quite: 2
Minutes spent looking around my office and realizing what a mess it is: .5
Minutes wondering how I’m going to find the time to clean it: 1
Minutes spent trying to figure out how I’m going to wrap this post up: 4
Minutes spent grasping for a pithy end statistic: 7
Estimated minutes I will spend correcting typos in this post: 27
Estimated time I will spend doing the things I told myself I would do today: 67
Estimated times I will tell myself that this is the last day of fall break and I deserve a rest before the final push: 89
Obama for President
About Me
- IM
- I use this blog to write about my life primarily. I don't post regularly, but I try to get at least 2 posts in a month and sometimes more. I'm about to start a masters in history after 15 years as a catering chef. I like goals, even if I don't reach all of them.
Blogs and Sites
- Inside Stories
- From Inside Out
- The Art of Boasting
- Stuck in a Book
- Toujours Jacques
- ecojusticechallenge
- Parsnips
- loweringmyexpectations
- nursemyra
- Make Tea Not War
- MarkAthitakisAmericanfiction
- Scott C
- My Restaurant Reviews
- New Historicism and Cultural Materialism
- everythinginbetween
- The Guilfordian
- Of Books and Bikes
- Jeremy's Blog
- The Voice of Reason
- Apparent Dip
- amaznode
- echoesinthewind
- bradgreenberg
- misteranchovy
- Mirkwood
- loosebaggymonster
- Musings From the Sofa
- Child of Revolution
- A Curious Singularity
- Elise's Recipes
- Hobgoblin
- Manderine le Chat
- Communicatrix
- Healing Magic hands
- Charlie Trotters
- The Foodist
- Hardcore-Troubadour
- Jew Eat Yet
- African Medical Mission
- Archie Archive
- Tiedyedlibrarian
- Dead News
- Andy Borowitz
- Alternatesideparking
- Zevely House
- Lindsay's Art
- The Julie/Julia Project
- DeadNet
- Salon
- Huffington Post
- Guilford College
- Charlotte's Web
- Tales From the Reading Room
- Ian and Emily
- Froshty Mugs
- Telecommuter Talk
- My Old Blog
Books 2008
- Inhuman Bondage, David Brion Davis
- Purchasing Identity in the Atlantic World, Phyllis Hunter
- The Age of Reconnaissance, J.H. Parry
- Atlantic Virginia: Intercolonial Relations in the Seventeenth Century, April Lee Hatfiield
- The Columbian Exchange, Alfred W. Crosby
- Facing East From Indian Country, Daniel Richter
- Atlantic History, Bernard Bailyn
- The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski
- The Invention of Solitude, Paul Auster
- Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
- The Izu Dancer and Other Stories, Yasumari Kawabata
- Duma Key, Stephen King
- American Pastoral, Philip Roth
- Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1&2, Keiji Nazazawa
- Maus Vol. 1&2, Art Speigelman
- Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trial '72, Hunter S. Thompson
- Botchan, Natsume Soseki
- Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
- Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen
- In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick
- The Darling, Russel Banks
- The Barracks Thief, Tobias Wolff
- Blue Latitudes, Tony Horwitz
- Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes
Books 2007
- On the Road, Jack Kerouak
- Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
- Big Sur, Jack Kerouac
- Boy, Roald Dahl
- The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
- In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, Tobias Wolff
- The Fortune of War, Patrick O'Brian
- Being There, Jerzy Kosinski
- Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, Dmitri Volkogonov
- Death Note vol. 1 (manga) Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata
- The Weimar Republic, Detlev J. K. Peukert
- Flight Vol. 3
- The Glass Key, Dashiell Hammett
- Travels with Myself and Another, Martha Gellhorn
- Gellhorn, A Twentieth-Century Life, Caroline Moorehead
- Roasting in Hell's Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay
- The Russian Revolution, Sheila Fitzpatrick
- Out of Africa, Karen Blixen
- A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
- Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck
- Flight Vol. II
- Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
- In Pharoah's Army, Tobias Wolff
- Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis
- Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell
- We Die Alone, David Howarth
- This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff
- A Year In Provence, Peter Mayle
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
- Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner
- Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Best American Comics of 2006
- Lenin's Tomb, David Remnick
16 comments:
Sounds like a lovely day, Ian. And your comments are by no means arcane nor awkward.
Im glad you only wasted a minute amount of time on all these problems. Some of them may deserve a second glance.
As a well known procrastinator, I can totally relate to this list! I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I read this. I think that I had almost every single one of those excuses run through my brain this week.
I didn't study for the GRE at all and did just fine. My reasoning was that if I hadn't already acquired a whole lot of knowledge, and if I hadn't learned how to take a test effectively through my numerous years as a student, then I might as well not take the GRE at all.
It's easy, it really is. It all depends on your attitude. So relax and destressify and you'll do great, I promise!
It really was a pretty good day Charlotte, and later I did the assigned reading so it wasn't a total write-off responsibility wise.
Archie, I live in kind of a microcosm where time is all distorted. Minutes may last for days, (lit. class) and weeks may go by in the blink of an eye (any vacation I've ever taken). I do need to go back and see if I really read the Redskin score correctly, and then adjust my period of guilt over their name.
Jeremy, oh fellow procrastinator. I'm glad you liked it but don't hurt yourself falling out of your chair--we need to do that presentation.
Char, encouraging words and other good people have told me the same. I've gotten through school with an uncanny ability to BS and the GRE worries me because how can you BS a computer? But I'm learning the trick of de-stressing myself.
I second the whole non-studying for the GRE. Took it, was fine, and I was not the most glowing student ever. Mind you, I did much better in the verbal and analytical than in the math, but my schools didn't care about my math scores one whit.
I'm a procrastinator. Loved this post!
Hey Courtney, I don't think the schools I'm looking at care abut the math either so that's good. I just need to bump up my vocab. Thanks for the encouragement.
Hilarious. Well, if you need any help procrastinating, and haven't discovered Cecilia, Tajel and Slackenerny, here you go:
http://phdcomics.com . On the positive side, C, T and S assure you that there is much occasion to procrastinate in grad school :).
I remember working pretty hard with the word-lists for GRE Verbal (It was out of 2400 at the time). I guess, here in the US, you probably have an easier time with that.
Yes Polaris, I might need some tips on creative procrastination. I feel like my technique is getting a little stale.
This is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time -- a classic post.
minutes reading your post and thinking about what to comment when I was supposed to make some phone calls and clean up my studio: 20
minutes laughing at your post: 3
Emily, I'm glad it made you laugh, and you should know that I spent a ggod amount of time on vocab yesterday.
Lindsay, we should all keep these indexes. I wonder if when you die you get to know all the times you did something.
Minutes spent changing my underwear after the Virginia game each Saturday: 20
Minutes being glad that this is the first comment my dad has ever posted: many.
Go Hoos!
You'll receive them as long as I have my private secretary who is unfortunately only temporary. Who also happens to be your neice.
Why didn't the private secretary comment?
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