Kurt Vonnegut: This Looks Like Inspiration

Kurt Vonnegut's letter describing his routine:

Dearest Jane, 

In an unmoored life like mine, sleep and hunger and work arrange themselves to suit themselves, without consulting me. I’m just as glad they haven’t consulted me about the tiresome details. What they have worked out is this: I awake at 5:30, work until 8:00, eat breakfast at home, work until 10:00, walk a few blocks into town, do errands, go to the nearby municipal swimming pool, which I have all to myself, and swim for half an hour, return home at 11:45, read the mail, eat lunch at noon...

 Continue reading at Brain Pickings

While I do not blame Kurt Vonnegut for creating a wonderful book such as Slaughterhouse-five which prevented from having enough time to study a few weeks before the battery of final exams, I think it is not proper that I come across his neatly packed life this time.

I have to pack my things for Boracay with my blockmates then summer in Iloilo City and I haven't even begun cleaning my dorm room. Even sadder is that I still have several pages of papers to write and submit before the end of the week. I hope you can swallow some nanotechnological tablet that induces pain whenever you procrastinate. The problem is I can adjust well to pain... on to searching for other methods. (And yes, I have tried to listen to those looping audio tapes that command you to focus. They don't work on me.)

How to not concentrate: a look-see on my distractions

So the finals week are coming up and I am surrounded by ideal students who willingly bury themselves in school work while I rebelliously (in its most uncool sense) try to defy common sense by keeping myself busy with irrelevant things. I am making this list not as a guide to distracting myself but rather as a list of things one should avoid. There is also a part of me that is hopeful that when I finally get to write the list down, I'll be able to control the temptations. 

1. World's Strictest Parents

Story is easy to catch: a pair of spoiled English teenagers are sent around the world to strict parents for a week. While a comment suggesting they change the title to the World's Saddest Teenagers sums up what I feel about the show, I can't stop watching the full episodes available on YouTube. It is probably a little pull-me-up from my instinctive attacks towards my own self-esteem but it is becoming a bad habit quickly.

2. Gossip Girl

I am not denying I've been trying to absorb fine art in my life as a way to cope. The Chloe Sevigny parody videos have been for a while a source of culture. I've been reading poetry and scrutinizing wonderful paintings but I still think that Gossip Girl is the best show on earth. You can stone me to death but GG has been a guilty pleasure since high school. Apart from the sentimental qualities of the show, it is still a wonderful thing to know that some teens are living action-packed lives and not the sleepwalking I am doing all the time.

3. Sewing/Embroidery

Valentine Haute Couture Fall 2013

I can't deny that I have been in love with fashion for a long time. It is probably because no matter what kind of person wears the clothes, it is still very easy to tell which designer made which. And the clothes are so well-made that I will faint just touching them. I know that making clothes is an extremely challenging thing, I think I can learn and start making clothes myself.

But it is definitely NOT the right time to start this hobby.

This list is not even complete. Also, I'm so excited for the papal conclave. 

I am currently not a practicing Catholic although I was born one and I intend to come back to the Church when I realize I can actually commit to it for life. However, the Roman Catholic church is most wonderful in its traditions and the conclave is so mysterious and secretive it is almost unreal! Remembering that it is basically the choosing of the most important man in the largest religion in the whole world is just so surreal! Plus, the oath of secrecy keeps everything a secret. What if the Holy Spirit actually lands in the room? Or the top scientists from CERN? The possibilities are endless!

KTHNXBYE! I'll try to study now.