Not Title-able

I'm not quite in the proper mood to write a blog, but I have a fairly substantial
chunk of time I need to kill.

Remember how I said Lord of the Flies was next on my reading list? I mistakenly got
The Grapes of Wrath from the library and am currently working on reading that. I'm
taking my time because it's not the easiest read, but I like it so far. Yes, even the
four chapters about the turtle crossing the road. There was a severe disconnect for
quite some time because I had looked up the synopsis of Lord of the Flies, expecting
to read that next and, for quite some time, while I was reading the chapters about
the turtle and the dust storms, I kept wondering when the characters would end up on
a remote island and have to establish their own government. Heh. Good old disconnect.
I also got Neuromancer from the library and it is sitting on my pile for when I
finish The Grapes of Wrath. My goal is to finish The Grapes of Wrath by my birthday.

Oh, hey! My birthday's coming up! Should I be excited? I'm not. I'm usually not a
particularly excitable person, actually. And, even I were a more excitable person,
it's only number twenty. The only significant landmark associated with twenty is the
cessation of the teenage age and the accomplishment of being one more year closer to
legal freedom. Haha, legal freedom. Anyway. Birthday? No big deal. I only noticed it
was coming up because I was working at the library and the due date for some items
happened to be the date of my birthday.

There was an article in the most recent edition of the college newspaper that started
out by saying "I hate Valentine's Day!" The author went on to simply say that the
day always reminds him of his loneliness. The rest of the article had nothing to do
with Valentine's Day OR his loneliness.

I will be having an interview sometime next week for my application to be an RA next
year and, with a fear of high expectations in mind, I AM SO EXCITED.

Also, today I met with a Sociology professor to get general advice about grad school.
I had arrived early and was waiting in the lounge when she arrived and asked me if
she was late. She made no move to look at a watch, so I'm guessing she doesn't wear
one. Neither do I, but my phone is my timekeeper. I started not wearing a watch a
few years ago for one of my classes as an experiment in sacrifice and relaxation.
The experiment required me to not wear a watch for a full week. I haven't worn one
since - with the exception of during my trip to Australia. And then I became more
and more attached to my phone. And then I entered a world where the structure is
mandated by time and anxiety has been conditioned with being late. So, essentially,
the world I'm in doesn't allow a timeless freedom and that's a shame because I
really do enjoy it. But, no, I'm held to my class schedule, my work schedule, my
activity schedule, the dining schedule, and so on. I've known people on both sides
of the continuum in regards to responding to this structure. I know the kind who
rebel completely and lose almost all sense of time. I know the kind who embrace the
overwhelming nature of structure with multiple calendars or other methods of
keeping a schedule. I'm suppose I'm close to being balanced and moderate, but I
would prefer to be more toward the timeless side. In my current environment, the
best way to make that happen would be to schedule all classes in one big chunk each
day. That way, I could keep going until I was done and wouldn't have to look at the
time, except to know when to start.

Speaking of being overwhelmed, I feel that I've become even more OCD since the
beginning of this semester. For nearly a week, almost every day, I've been writing
myself a daily to-do list. To me, this seems excessive. Am I busier? Have I too much
to do? No, just the opposite. I have things to do, obviously, but I have just little
enough that suppose I fear it would be easy to sit and do nothing. So, instead,
I've been writing myself daily to-do lists that I commit myself to completing before
I allow myself to sit and do nothing. Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. This sounds like
workaholicism to me (which, apparently, I've never posted about?). Not allowing one's
self to enjoy nothingness until everything is completed? I do believe that was my
brother and my working definition of workaholicism... Oh dear, dear, dear. But it
can't be! I've been doing SO much nothing! I watched the entire first season of a
new tv show over the past two days! I'm doing nothing right now! I'm going to do
nothing tonight! Perhaps this workaholicism would only be a severe problem if I had
much more to do and thus never scheduled time for myself to do nothing. Maybe it's
okay so long as I don't get to the point where I would need to schedule time to do
nothing? Even so, my increasing reliance upon daily to-do lists is becoming a bit
disconcerting...

From Thursday to yesterday, I had a test in all four of my classes that have tests.
I will post a school update when all of those have been returned.

Also, I am really, really static-y. I'm at the library and, every time I get up to
go to the laptop shelves, I get shocked on the metal case. And, every time I sit
back down in the computer chair, I get shocked on my laptop. Ahhhhhghghhrhrghghgh.