Trying Not to Procrastinate

I have wasted a lot of time this summer. A lot of the time I think I am looking for direction. I was always a self-starter, but I had a lot of trouble finishing projects. Part of this comes from my visual processing disorder [1],which make it difficult to take in visual input for any period of time without taking adequate breaks.[2] Earlier this summer, however, my self-starter instinct seemed to have died. I constantly put books down after a few minute or pages, I spend hours watching inane television instead of getting to the books and articles I desperately wanted to read, I always came back to the same set of flashcards because I never used them consistently enough to lodge the words in my memory, etc.

When Cerinthus was here I was in the worst of my rut. I spent a large amount of time downloading books off the internet when I should have been spending time with him or even just reading one of the books I had downloaded. Then, to make matters worse, I came down with a horrible flu, which made me feel like I was looking at the world through a thick veil of incomprehension and I could not concentrate on anything.

It seems that I have finally managed to turn things around. Yesterday was my first day back at the gym. Finally I finished the first book on my reading list, Oswyn Murray's Early Greece. I plan on starting my next book tomorrow. On Saturday I proctor my next exam, so I need something to keep me occupied. I found The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 B.C. by Jeffery Hurwit in my garage today; it is one of the many books I still have not managed to unpack and bring upstairs. Since I plan to expand the second chapter of my thesis based on some encouraging data in Early Greece, I thought that Hurwit's book might provide even more fodder for my rewriting.






While I was reading Early Greece, I became so excited by different piece of Greek history that I had missed in my attempt to balance the academics of school and my personal life and health that I blogged about it. I have written two installments so far, Greek History Review #1 and #2 and my plan is to finish my third installment tomorrow which will be able to be found at my Platonic Psychology blog. I find that it is easier to remember the facts that I read when I write about them and I am more likely to put pen to paper (or in this case, finger to keyboard) when my writing is "published," insofar as blogging is publishing. I especially like it when I can add awesome pictures (see Greek History Review #2).

Endnotes

1.  Basic information about visual processing disorders can be found at LDonline.
2. For this reason, visual processing difficulties are often confused with ADHD. 

The Summer Flu and Indian Food

On Thursday I came down with the flu. Every morning I wake up feeling better, and every morning, an hour later, I feel like I've been run over by a train and spend the rest of the day trying to recover. My fever shot up today and i had to warn my boss I might not be able to make it to work tomorrow. It's terrible. I've spent all day-- my worst day so far-- in bed watching bad movies.

I feel truly terrible. Cerinthus is here for the last time before he goes to Europe for six months and I'm languishing in ill health while hes watches bad movies and plays computer games. What unfortunate timing.

One of the wonderful things that Cerinthus has done to take care of me was to order take out from our favorite Indian Place, Clay Oven. I got the extra spicy Chicken Tikka Masala, which helped my sinuses to drain and made me feel much better than I would have without it. It was wonderful. Garlic naan dipped in sauce that burns off the roof of one's mouth. It was perfect. I was alive again for about half an hour and then back to being a wraith.

Beside the inane movies that we have been watching, we have also been watching Sherlock with my parents. Sherlock is a new British series that does a modern updating of Sherlock Holmes. I am no particular fan of Sherlock Holmes on principle. The first episode of this show was awesome. Holmes is an obsessive high-functioning sociopath. He is unempathetic, erudite, charming, and brilliant-- but he's totally cold. Dr. John Watson is warm,  charming, and is a soldier at heart who cannot stay away from a thrill or danger. He breathes warmth and levity into the buddy duo that is the lifeblood of the show. I do, generally, have a (particularly unfortunate) penchant for the sociopathic genius, but in this case it's the duo that is bewitchingly charming. I guess it shows my own personal growth. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the characters between the first and second episodes. However, the third episode might be a little brighter.