Month: September 2005

Imagine this: For next class, you have to give a presentation on two Greek plays: Electra and Philocetectes.

Now imagine this: Almost a week has passed and it is now 5pm, the day before your presentation, and you still haven’t read these two plays. But, there is still time. Class is not until 9am the next morning, and you still have the rest of the evening to read and come up with something to present—piece of cake/cup of coffee.

But then…(donnt-da-daa) your roommate tells you that his sister is having an off-campus house-party at the ol’alma mater. What do you do?

Stupid question, I know. You go to the party; but impose a stricture limiting how long you will stay. Say it’s 6pm now, being back home at 10pm would be worst-case-scenario, and even then you may have enough time to read 100 pages or so, and get a decent night of sleep.

So, now you’re at the party, and you’re having fun and time sprints past you. It’s already 11pm and past your self-imposed curfew. The thought of dropping the class skirts across your mind. But guilt overwhelms you, so you leave. Home is an hour away so you get in close to midnight.



You’re exhausted, too torpor to think about them Greeks and there twisted drama, but you persevere, you muscle it through. And you finish your reading and it’s now 2 am. Class is at 9am, but you haven’t quite finished yet. There is still the matter of preparing a presentation. Do it in the Morning! You set the alarm to 6am, (4 hours, that oughta do it).

**********

The piercing shrill of the alarm wakes you up 4 hours later, which seem like 4 minutes later. It’s cold, the sky is still dark, but you again, persevere, shower, and make tea alongside a small repast. Your mind is clear and you start jotting notes, and come up with all sorts of crap to talk about for your presentation.

You go to class on time, and nail that presentation.

Moral of this story:

Learn from experience. Whenever something needs to be done, wait till the very last minute, and then hold off for a few more seconds. Or as Mark Twain more eloquently puts it “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” Wise man.

I just discovered that “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, the absolutly hilarious NPR news quiz-show, has all their past shows online for free download.

Here is the link:

Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me



(If you’ve never heard of it before, I recommend you check it out. It’s quite a riot.)

(Thanks Dorothy!)

(alt. title: emesis by words)

September is the cruelest month, not April.

Front yards are sordid and unkempt, frazzled, for the fight to maintain a verdant lawn is out-muscled by the sun. The nights are no longer wholesome, save December, and the air begins to chill and thin and the blankets are summoned from the closet.

School begins to reopen, a non-pejorative condition, however its influence on the honest faces of children is infectious, turning smiles into a pale sense of foreboding.

Who was this man who held such a bleak estimation of April? April is optimistic; it’s fresh. It awakens the sleeping, and tears down the old, and bathed every vein in swich liquor.

But September is portentous.

Gas prices rise unchecked. H3 hummers run over the elderly. Storms come and quickly rattle the nation–except in Washington where there is a slight delay.

Summer is on its final lap. Fall is near. The leaves will fall. The temperature will fall, so will the forlorn summer spirit.

September is the cruelest month! Never April.