A cheese and pickle sandwich at 8pm is truly the sign of a hopeless man.
I’m not suggesting that the sandwich itself is a problem, but more the fact that I made it as a form of procrastination. I’ve heard of art for art’s sake, and am the occasional spokesman of food for food’s sake, but the insertion of curdled milk and preserved pickle between two bits of bread should not be treated as an event, nor a reprieve, from anything. Although I’m sure it is welcome as a way to “fill” five minutes for victims of prolonged torture.
Sadly, I cannot pity myself so much as to believe that claiming my essay as being torturous would hold up in court. Still, productivity is a weird thing, as I often finds that it takes the mental equivalent of being water-boarded for information to make me get off my arse and actually address my course load. This week for example, I did all the background research and interviews necessary to write two news stories for my portfolio, as well as creating a presentation, all for a deadline yesterday. This being in the context that I’ve had these assignments in my head since January time and yet felt no need to make life easier for my future self by being nice enough to notice them. When the pressure ducked my head under for another round of forceful conversation, I spilled the beans over a space of two days. Now, I have until this Thursday to write an essay before my exams start good and proper.
What is strangest about this is that, on the face of it, I don’t actually have that much to do; my weekly contact hours wouldn’t stress out an elderly person with anxiety issues and an optimistic grasp of their remaining brain functions, and I think my work last year was considerably more difficult. Ultimately what’s different this year is that a lot of the work is so flexible and down to my own initiative and determination, as oppose to working towards a set question or goal. I have so little to do, so much of the time, that I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel the urgency of a deadline. Also, I chose this course, and University in general, so I feel that I can’t complain.
All I can say is, thank god for pressure. When it entered the room with the towel and the bucket, laying out other tools like enticing after-dinner mints, I became a sheep being pushed as part of a particular herd again: the herd working towards a definite deadline of definite consequence, that I could just about see through the sodden material. Of course, I’ve barely looked at the revision for my exams in and amongst my attempts to draw news stories out of an area so devoid of life that I’m half expecting a kind of Monty Python-esque plague and cart scene. But that’s something I’ll deal with when my captor moves the other tools and reveals the pliers and the nail gun. Or at the very least, a copy of anything on my reading list…
Confined to Open Pages 