This morning, despite the urgings of my ever-loving bed, I got up. I went and sat at my desk. I opened a book. I read assigned pages. I took notes on it. I thought about what I was reading.
When I was done with that, I saved the PDFs of this week’s reading assignment to my dropbox and opened that on my ipad. I read it. I took notes. I thought about it, in turn.
When I was done with that, I cracked my script. I reviewed some scenes, did some text work, highlighted and underlined some things, and took some marginalia notes on that.
When I was done with that, I sent a few e-mails and took care of some long-awaited administrative business that I really couldn’t start the semester without doing.
Now that I’m done with that, I think I’m going to go relax on the couch for a good long time. Break may be winding down but it’s not officially over until Wednesday.
Although I will say this: despite the fact that having absolutely nothing to do on a given day is a rare luxury (and one I don’t generally afford myself, even during breaktime), having something one must do on a given day certainly works to relieve my anxiety about things I can’t really do anything about in this moment anyway. Every time I so much as think the word “comps”, the bottom drops out of my stomach and I get an overwhelming feeling of
Ah yes. My love. My Preeeeciousssss.
vertigo. Whenever I glance at my German (a necessary obstacle before I even get to my comps), I find a little demon sitting on my shoulder whispering to me “DU KANNST ES NICHT!” Somehow, hitting deadlines that are absolutely within my control and things that I know I am capable of doing alleviates this stress.
I will kill that demon. He’s not long for this world. I just need to work up some courage first. It’s probably going to come in liquid form; I’m deep in the torrid thralls of a love affair with the cappuccino machine my folks gifted me with for Christmas. Let me tell you, it’s done wonders to alter my outlook on life.
