Time

Hey everyone!

It's been a little while since my last post! Boy where does the time go? I can't really give any good excuses because...well I can't.

And yet don't we all suffer from this? This horrible contradiction of joys and pains that causes us to spend the littlest time on the thing we love most to do? For me it's writing. I love, love, love to write. I used to spend hours non-stop writing, plugged into my music, chugging out image after image, working on characters, always amazed and delighted to see what came next. It earned me a typing speed of 98 words per minute. Well, and also some stories, you know, that too.

Yet these days it seems harder and harder to find the time. And not only the time, but the energy. I think you all know what I mean-- you work excruciatingly hard to give yourself a little free time later in the day (or in the week if your schedule is anything like mine!!) but by the time you get to that couple of hours of liberty...you're completely and utterly wiped. You don't want to think about anything, not even the thing you love to do. Because writing is hard work! It takes brain cells and stuff! And where did those brain cells and stuff go? Straight into the project, assignment, work shift, moving muscles to stay standing business. We're so exhausted that after doing all of the things we have to do each day, at the end we just want to stare mindlessly at the TV/computer/fish tank or collapse straight into bed. We don't want to expend one more ounce of energy in the exercising of our minds.

A sad, true, and puzzling dilemma. I certainly don't have an answer for it yet. My answer is to wait until you have a long enough break that you can spend a good two to two and a half weeks completely vegging and then yank your detoxed brain out of the jacuzzi for some productivity that is creative and worth something to our muses (which, face it, bagging groceries for $8.00 an hour or solving probability equations don't quite cut it). I had this last week off-- except for one homework assignment that I didn't begin until a day before the break was over, I had nothing to do. Well, some chores and lists and to dos. Some emails, visits, future planning, studying...wait, what happened to that having nothing to do? Er....well anyway! Spent enough time vegging and reading and cooking that I felt, at the end of it all, marginally revitalized. It wasn't long enough though. One week out of the prior 9? Hmmm...something here seems uneven! But unfortunately that's the reality of life, and I'm told it only gets worse from here.

BUT when school has finally ended, even though my mind will be occupied with *new* highly stressful things, like a full-time job, paying bills, etc. and so forth and all that that implies...I will no longer be required to memorize probability equations, soliloquize on philosophical topics I really couldn't be less interested in, or memorize mounds of information to spit back on this essay or that exam. No more summer vacation? No more weeks and weeks of classes building up to one final explosion. I think it evens out a bit.

But we'll see, won't we? Me, I plan to be fully and thoroughly pleased when I graduate and get my first full-time job. And my spare time will not be engaged in searching for a job, working on my internship cover letters, hoping my GPA and volunteering is enough to get me a job, or studying for my classes forever and on end. I will be writing, for me. Me me me!!!

But until then, the majority of my writing will be at the whims of my tapioca brain. Should the spur come between now and the summer, then hoorah for the muse! If not, though, for now I've bowed down the to pressure of the student's life and will wait patiently to do some real literary damage over the long months I am given to recover.

One last thought....I find it odd and sinister that we have to have three months out of the year to 'recover' from school...............................recover, as in from damage...*eerie music* Spoooooooky.....and not at all surprising to any student past the high school level.

Next post I will be exploring the joys and hysteria (I meant hysterics! Really! Truly! Why are you laughing?) of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. We will discuss the 42 ways to mix a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

Yes. That makes sense.

Caitlyn