retail therapy
These past few weeks have been pretty awful (skip this if you hate complaints). First Thanksgiving was interrupted by my grandmother getting pneumonia, which meant my mom spent the rest of the week down at Judson. I spent basically the entire break writing my Roman architecture paper and taking notes on my Holocaust paper (NOT the most enjoyable topic when you're having family problems). On the Sunday I went back to school I had my usual I-can't-face-going-back-to-Yale session, with sulking and gloom as I boarded the plane. And to top it all off, last week as I tried to catch up on reading, finish my Holocaust notes, and read a book to review for psych, my mom called saying my grandmother had died.
We'd been expecting it for a while, and I guess if you're inclined to the "she's in a better place" ideology you could say it was probably best. She had Parkinson's in a somewhat advanced stage, so she couldn't really communicate to us in a way that made much sense. Lissa and I can't clearly remember her when she was totally healthy. But it still came as a shock when Mom told me, and I don't like thinking about it much. It means winter break will be full of family members we don't see often, because they'll all be in Cleveland for the memorial service, but it also takes the sparkle out of Christmas and break in general.
And it doesn't mean my papers have magically disappeared. In the interest of my emotional health I decided to "throw myself into work," at least as much as I could stand, which apparently means procrastinating like crazy while I suffer enormous guilt complexes about not doing my work. I've taken to wandering the Yale Bookstore after meals or before I go to the library, looking at all the books I want to read and wishing I had time to do so. I even told myself I could indulge in some retail therapy because of the past few weeks.
Now, some of you (cough Nilly cough) know that I have the most terrible time convincing myself to buy anything, or choose anything for that matter. I'm incredibly indecisive, and when it comes to purchases I always worry that I won't actually wear the shirt once I have it, or that I'll hate the book and won't want to read it ever again, and it will sit neglected on my shelf. The only things I ever buy on impulse are coffee and coffee-related drinks, and even then I have trouble at home. Lissa, who's a Starbucks fiend, spends hours upon hours convincing me to get a drink with her at the Starbucks in Chagrin. Anyhow, all this means that my "retail therapy" motivation at the bookstore got delayed by several trips. Since last week I've been visiting the bookstore, wandering the aisles picking up interesting-looking titles, and putting them back because they're not exactly what I'm looking for, or they might be too depressing, or they might be badly written. I kept coming back to Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, which is supposed to be very well-written and a great read to boot, and I'm even interested in boarding schools. No strikes against it. Still, something held me back. Finally I bucked up my courage, hauled out my wallet, and plunked down $11.83 for a shiny new paperback edition (no hardbacks was one of my rules) that's now burning a hole in my bookshelf. This is a real accomplishment for me.
And what will be even more of an accomplishment is if I stop procrastinating and write my Holocaust paper instead of updating LiveJournal. Back to work...
We'd been expecting it for a while, and I guess if you're inclined to the "she's in a better place" ideology you could say it was probably best. She had Parkinson's in a somewhat advanced stage, so she couldn't really communicate to us in a way that made much sense. Lissa and I can't clearly remember her when she was totally healthy. But it still came as a shock when Mom told me, and I don't like thinking about it much. It means winter break will be full of family members we don't see often, because they'll all be in Cleveland for the memorial service, but it also takes the sparkle out of Christmas and break in general.
And it doesn't mean my papers have magically disappeared. In the interest of my emotional health I decided to "throw myself into work," at least as much as I could stand, which apparently means procrastinating like crazy while I suffer enormous guilt complexes about not doing my work. I've taken to wandering the Yale Bookstore after meals or before I go to the library, looking at all the books I want to read and wishing I had time to do so. I even told myself I could indulge in some retail therapy because of the past few weeks.
Now, some of you (cough Nilly cough) know that I have the most terrible time convincing myself to buy anything, or choose anything for that matter. I'm incredibly indecisive, and when it comes to purchases I always worry that I won't actually wear the shirt once I have it, or that I'll hate the book and won't want to read it ever again, and it will sit neglected on my shelf. The only things I ever buy on impulse are coffee and coffee-related drinks, and even then I have trouble at home. Lissa, who's a Starbucks fiend, spends hours upon hours convincing me to get a drink with her at the Starbucks in Chagrin. Anyhow, all this means that my "retail therapy" motivation at the bookstore got delayed by several trips. Since last week I've been visiting the bookstore, wandering the aisles picking up interesting-looking titles, and putting them back because they're not exactly what I'm looking for, or they might be too depressing, or they might be badly written. I kept coming back to Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, which is supposed to be very well-written and a great read to boot, and I'm even interested in boarding schools. No strikes against it. Still, something held me back. Finally I bucked up my courage, hauled out my wallet, and plunked down $11.83 for a shiny new paperback edition (no hardbacks was one of my rules) that's now burning a hole in my bookshelf. This is a real accomplishment for me.
And what will be even more of an accomplishment is if I stop procrastinating and write my Holocaust paper instead of updating LiveJournal. Back to work...