For an animal physiologist -- that is, for someone who understands the importance of rest, recuperation and avoiding burn-out -- I have a very impractical fear of Sundays.
I have this compulsion about reserving free time, which I think stems from the intense anxiety that I nurtured through my undergraduate tenure. Finding opportunities to recalibrate my blood pressure, gastrointestinal upset, mental condition, chakra, neural discombobulation, etc. was essential... and I always found them. Always.
The charge of the Compulsion was to plan my schedule grossly overestimating the amount of time I might need to accomplish any given component of the agenda. In this way, I accounted for Crohn's interference, scientific calamity and whatever other nebulous college surprises and set-backs emerged. Having overestimated the time consumption of the surprises and set-backs, I was always left with a bit of time in the evenings and on Sundays.
The problem was that when I entered into those glorious and hard-won segments of freedom... I spent them either working ahead on something unnecessarily, or screwing around wasting the time completely in the process of looking for something to work ahead on unnecessarily (this was, of course, only if I was not playing frisbee or on whatever random adventure presented itself... I even learned to crochet a little bit because it got to the point where I couldn't watch an episode of House without getting fidgety...).
Yes, I know.
Although I like to think I'm a more healthy mind more recently, I have not been able to overcome the propensity for projects. As previously posted, almost immediately after finishing the GRE I had a mini-manic episode over having not planned myself any de-briefing projects. Consequently, here I am on a lazy Sunday fighting the primal urge to work ahead on my Movement Disorders Journal Club presentation... which is at the end of October.
Yes, I know.
The untenable Fear of Sundays expresses itself now in a more projectile fashion: my ever-menacing homunculus toils to convince me that if I indulge in rest now, I may become too fond of it to the point that addiction to slothfulness crashes my graduate school career.
Most of you will be shocked that I spent my day today watching the final episodes of Battlestar Gallactica and a documentary of George Westinghouse, thoroughly cleaning/re-organizing the bathrooms and kitchen, and slothing away on the couch with tea and AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War.
No journal club presentation, no work-related science articles, no graduate school applications. I even made H.B. do the grocery run (let it be known that I ran errands yesterday). Today is about renewal.
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