It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I very much apologize for my absence.
AND!
I very much apologize even more, if said absence lead any of your to believe that some kind of tragedy had befallen either myself or my loved ones.
The truth of the matter is – life happened.
And it happened a lot.
This summer has been one of intense happenings – change, growth, learning, happiness; sadness, athletics, adventure, beauty, love, and, of course, fun.
All the fun has been had.
But I am also at this point where I feel the need to pack a bag, head to YVR, grab Marc’s hand, and buy a pair of the farthest away one-way plane tickets we can afford.
We’ll fly off into the wide-blue yonder with nothing but a change of undies, our running shoes, and a bag of peanut butter M&M’s (purchased from Hudson News. It’s a tradition.)
POOF.
We’ll be gone.
It’s weird.
I often forget about the aging process.
I think much of this has to do with the fact that Marc and I have now been together now for ten years. (August 16 marked this milestone in our relationship.)
I was eighteen when we first got together, and there is a strange little part of me that still thinks that we are still those same people: that I am still that silly and starry-eyed first year undergraduate student, and he is the suave, and self-sufficient third-year classics major.
And sure, there is some truth to that – those people still very much make up a part of our characters, our souls.
But any way you slice, it – we’ve changed.
We are changing.
We are maturing – both inside and out.
And it’s something that is happening every single day of our lives.
And I don’t begrudge this happening.
In fact, I love it.
I like life a heck of a lot more now than I did as that undergraduate student.
It’s just that I don’t ever really reflect on these changes unless I am confronted by this fact – maybe I’ll see someone I haven’t seen in quite a long time; or I’ll start to realize that I am outgrowing older friendships.
Outside of my immediate self, I notice this most when I see the other loves of my life also changing, and adapting.
I see it when people have babies.
When people get sick.
When people get married, and when they get divorced.
When they buy property, when they move away, when they stop eating meat, when they start reading Kant –
And it’s good.
Because without this movement, this incessant striving, this going forward – we just die. We become stagnant and morose; we stop asking questions, we stop engaging in dialogue, we stop progress.
We can’t properly appreciate life.
The only trick of the matter is – how to find a balance between this constant striving and the ability to sit back and enjoy the aging process?
How do I keep moving but not to the extent where I feel the need to run away because life has reached a new level of overwhelming activity?
This is, of course, a topic I’ve written about quite a bit here at Rant and Roll, but seeing as though I have yet to answer this question, it will most likely be something that I keep revisiting as we head into the Autumn months (and no doubt beyond.)
There are so many good things to look forward to: Powell River in the Fall, running the Fall Classic 10k, Nova Scotia in November, playing soccer with Marc, fireside nights with a good book and our beauty cat.
But before we get too ahead of ourselves, I want to make sure that I take the time to appreciate everything this summer had to offer.
Marc is a brilliant task-master and we recently re-organized our spice cabinet.
We bought some small glass jars at the dollar store, and then I hand-wrote the name of each spice on the front.
This lovely little project reminds me something the tremendous Laura Beth of Perched on a Whim might do. Seeing as though I worship at her alter of BEAUTIFUL CRAFTS OF LIFE, I am still feeling a little giddy.
Strange crushes.
Am I the only one who really likes David Hyde Pierce?
But like, in that way?
But I don’t know what to do with that tossed salad and scrambled eggs…
Currently I am missing Birmingham, UK something fierce. In the fall of 2009 my husband and I spent four months in the city. I was on academic exchange for my graduate program, and during our time overseas I attended classes, travelled the country, taught English at a school for young Afghani asylum seekers, spent a week in Switzerland – in short, I had the most amazing and profound adventure of my life.
As we crawl closer to September – the month we departed for the UK – I cannot help but reflect on our time spent in Brum.
Here is a brief snapshot of the start to what ended up being a truly brilliant, beautiful, and life-changing time:
Day three/four in Jolly Ol’ England. Baaaaaahhhh.
Yesterday we moved into our new place. The night previous Marc had seriously destroyed his stomach (the tragic mistake? Purchasing a can of Carlsberg lager on our way home from dinner as an accompaniment for six individually wrapped cake pastries that were amazing, yet deliriously rich and quite heavy on the tummy) and spent most of the night in agony, pacing around the hotel room. This, coupled by the fact that we had spent a good portion of the day walking around the city left us completely knackered (in the parlance of our times, or at least country) and we managed to not only sleep in past breakfast, but past check-out.
Hotel room!
Stress was had.
And we had ALL of it.
Also I’m not sure I would do very well as a regular student at the University of Birmingham. The campus seems to be run in a “laissez-faire” kind of way, which does not sit well with neurotics and obsessive compulsives (aka-me.)
I met today with my tutor, who was lovely and personable and we discussed my course sign up, but mostly we chatted about the campus and how easy it is to sit in on other professors’ courses as long as you contact them first.
There is a PoliSci introduction this Friday from 11-12 that will cover everything course-related and although I didn’t want to make her go through everything that I would be hearing in two days’ time, it was all I could do not to jump up from my seat and yell out “WHY THE CAN’T WE DO ANYTHING BY A STRICT SCHEDULE I AM NOT GOOD WITH BLURRY LINES.”
She was so calm as she sat there telling me that as long as I had signed up for my courses by the second week of term (bloody October 10th or there around) I would be okay.
My guts were roiling just thinking about this.
The campus is phenomenal, with lovely red brick buildings that stand in sharp contrast to the velvety green of the grass that spreads around the campus like a deranged serpent in pursuit of higher learning (or maybe just to munch on the ankle of an undergrad or two.)
Campus clock!
I am excited to explore the European Research Institute and attend the guest lecture series available to all students.
I am excited to attend classes where I will actually be interested in the material in hopes to rediscover why I actually fell in love with academia in the first place.
I am excited to ride my bike along Norfolk Road wearing my chunky boots and pink tuque, daydreaming about the city’s Christmas market while trying not to get killed each time I forget which way the cars are coming.
Christmas market!
I cannot believe that Marc and I will be here for but four months. The city is powered by a maddeningly seductive electricity that I have yet to discover anywhere in Vancouver. This spark runs through the multicultural signposts standing at each street corner, and in the form of head scarfs and turbans and skin colours that range from the palest pales to the deepest blacks. It is present in the bustling how-to-do of New Street and the downtown core, in the cheap but flavourful takeaways that take up space on most street corners (and often in between), and the men selling fresh dairy products down at the open air market, bellowing over and over about their jumbo sized eggs, sold either in a half or one dozen cartons.
This country is also bloody fantastic due to the amount of candy available EVERYWHERE. As I sit typing this I am eating a package of “Quarter Pounders” drinking a class of Diet Cherry Coke.
I feel a bit of existential angst every time I set foot in a grocery mart: there is so much to choose from I find myself asking “what’s the point? I’ll never be able to try all of these products!”
Further, I used to think that I drank quite a lot of tea and only now realize how silly I was in my naivety. M and I drink somewhere between eight to ten cups of tea a day, more on days that we spend time in the company of friends. It will be running through our veins in no time and I’ll find myself transformed into Kevin McDonald’s Tetley addict, imagining that Dave Foley dressed as a giant tea bag is chasing me around my flat shouting “COME ON…DUNK ME! DUNK ME!”
I keep saying that I am going to get back into the regular routine of things – writing, reading, and commenting on the regular – but life keeps getting completely out of control and I find that I have zero time to do anything (like tie my shoes!), let alone sink back into this wonderous blogosphere and get my rant and roll on.
So please forgive my absence – or as it has been of late, my hot and cold presence.
Please know that I am thinking about all of you, and am taking the time (whenever it comes up!) to take pleasure in all of your musings, insights, photographs, and updates.
I miss this place terribly, and am doing my very best to get back to a regular rhythm.
And until the time when I regain my blogger mojo, some snaps:
I realized I had a problem when I began reading Battlestar Gallactica fan-fiction on the internet.
I suppose this wouldn’t have been so bad if I had either been a) a fan of the show or b) someone who regularly enjoyed world-wide ready smut, but as I was neither, warning bells were quick to sound.
(The worse of it? I actually had to SIGN UP to gain access to the website.)
OKAY FINE.
I always had a thing for Adama and Roslin. I understand that this makes me very weird. But I am okay with that.
It was a Tuesday at two in the morning, and I was mashed into a kitchen chair with my knees pressed up against my chest and my slippers half slid off my feet, feeling kind of turned on, but mostly horrified. Dressed in my husband’s boxers and an old tank top, I felt chills run the length of my spine – the kind that makes you feel completely clammy, as though your entire body is blushing.
I stumbled to my feet.
The need to get away from the computer, and its mocking stare was overpowering; I felt nauseous. As I stepped backwards I tripped over my cat’s overturned scratching post. Cracking my knee against the desk, I toppled to the ground.
As my face made contact with the carpet, the face of the evil force that had lead to this late-night, lackluster climax (metaphorically, not literally) rushed up to greet me.
This was procrastination beyond anything I had ever known.
It must be noted that I had every intention of writing this post at the last minute –as any piece on procrastination is wont to be, I’m sure – and let the record stand that I did.
BUT.
I also decided to do a little bit of research.
For instance, did you know that the origin of the word is derived from the Latin pro, meaning “forward, forth, or in favor of,” and crastinus, meaning “of tomorrow”? And that it can be defined as “to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse-off for the delay”?
Synonyms include: frivoling, idling, dilly-dallying, loafing, puttering and trifling.
Examples of procrastination often cited include: frenetically cleaning, exercising, cooking, baking, watching television, completing crosswords, obsessively checking e-mail and trolling online gossip and sporting websites.
Very true. And also a great way to procrastinate.
(A friend who wishes to remain anonymous confessed to once visiting soapopera.net to read the episode recaps of shows she didn’t even watch.)
However this is not to say that there aren’t numerous inventive, creative and incredibly interesting ways to pass the time when you are not doing the thing (whatever it is) you are supposed to be doing.
I once met a guy, a then UBC MFA student who recounted how he makes lists whenever he procrastinates. I thought this to be rather mundane (everybody makes to-do lists!) and asked him to elaborate.
“No,” he told me. “You don’t quite understand. I don’t just make lists. I make lists and then I memorize them. For example, the 1987-88 NHL scoring race went as such: Lemieux 168, Gretzky 149, Savard 131, Hawerchuk 121, Robitaille 111…”
I sat there stunned as he rattled off the top ten point leaders as well as their totals.
“There are only so many times you can look at something until it sticks with you,” he told me. “For a while it was NHL stats. I pick and choose what I want to learn about I suppose.”
Another friend told me how when he procrastinates he obsesses over bicycling infrastructure.
“Does that have something to do with the actual construction of the bike?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “It means that I lust after places like Copenhagen and Amsterdam,” he explained.
I didn’t tell him that I thought that was pretty darn weird. I mean, who was I to judge?
So why do we procrastinate? There are four main theories on this topic. The first concerns a fear of anxiety, fear of failure or pursuit of perfectionism. The conceit being, the more an individual fears the task at hand the more anxious they become about starting. Therefore, they are more likely to put it off, hence a need to procrastinate.
The second theory is that of self-handicapping. This is when people place obstacles that hinder their own good performance. The motivation for self-handicapping is often to protect self-esteem by giving people an external reason, an “out,” if they fail to do well.
The third theory concerns rebelliousness. Certain personality traits, such as hostility and stubbornness supposedly leave individuals predisposed against schedules and authority and are therefore more likely to procrastinate.
The fourth is a theory that purports that we are constantly beset with making decisions among various courses of action, and as such, make decisions based on what we would rather do more. For instance, should we do homework or spend time with friends? Do we watch TV or go for a run? Study for a midterm or clean the bathroom? It suggests that individuals are more likely to take on the task that is both more enjoyable and easier to attain and put off those more difficult with varying degrees of personal satisfaction.
There are of course less academically substantiated hypotheses. These concern the beliefs that underneath it all there is a fundamental, human belief in the profundity of procrastination. Perhaps it is both part of a conscious denial of, or rebellion against the linear nature of time and the structured nature of the world that revolves around the completion of assignments, the writing of exams, and the never ending list of projects.
Procrastination is a conscious practice; it is an attempt to move beyond the moving forward; it is an exercise in existing only in a moment and trying to make that moment last forever.
Some academics believe that procrastination is a thoroughly modern invention, due to a move from an agrarian society to urban. Back in the 14th century, 98% of the population of the Western world lived on manor estates (take these statistics with a grain of salt) and spent their days working on the land of whatever lord, or earl held power. From sun up to sun down their day was mapped out – there was no time, let alone substantial resources for procrastination. It wasn’t until the advent of numerous deadlines, schedules and commitments, or ever, the advent of personal choice, that procrastination came into play.
There are a number of tests and scales that allow you to measure your own level of procrastination (just google “procrastination test.”) On the one I took I came out as a “moderate procrastinator” who “puts things off sometimes even though [I] know I shouldn’t.”
Oh yeah? What profound insight! Yeesh. (Thank goodness I didn’t have to pay money to take the test.)
Also, I couldn’t help but think as I answer all ninety-one questions was how great an exercise in procrastination it was in and out of itself. Which in turn took me back to hockey stats and bicycle paths, because it is interests like those and quizzes like the one I took that make me wonder whether or not procrastination is a bad as we have come to think.
Perhaps it less destructive and more instructive than we give it credit.
The popular adage goes: “procrastination is like masturbation – either way you’re just screwing yourself.”
I’ve come to consider that this may be the insignia of some puritanical, incredibly efficient sect, because if everyone felt as good after a day of procrastination as they did after a hour (or whatever) of self-loving, school libraries would reek less of desperation and more of quiet satisfaction.
I mean, depending on the day, the individual involved and the specific job at hand, people find themselves immersed in something they’d never before considered important and perhaps still don’t find important – yet are still learning and still growing nevertheless (Battlestar Galactica fan fiction not included.)
But the fact remains the same, we are still doing something. We are still learning something, or practicing something, or scrubbing something; at the end of the day, we will still have something to show for our efforts despite our lack of progress on our intended project.
Case in point: procrastination can lead to a tidier, germ-free apartment; knowledge about Danish cycling routes; and a windfall realization as to why identical evil twins are so damn popular on day-time TV.
Rant and Roll 