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October 18, 2007

Waxing and Whining

First of all, I'm sure you've all noticed I've done WAY too many posts tonight. That's because I'm slowly trying to get caught up with my blog and if I break it down into little projects of short entries, I'm much better able to motivate myself to actually do them, than if I try to do some all-encompassing update. Anyway, I guess I have more time to do this than I thought, because I've gotten through quite a bit. For those of you looking at the timestamp on this entry (started after 3am) yes, I did say "I have more time to do this" just now. I think I've become completely nocturnal. I've had so many all-nighters in a row for school that I actually can't fall asleep before 4am now. My 8:30am class is going to be really fun tomorrow, I can't wait.

Anyway, so here's the story of how Brent and I waxed and whined our way through a Sunday afternoon.

Brent and I are in the same Senior Seminar at Trinity which is basically a graduate-level class that we can take instead of writing a thesis. This class has a LOT of reading in some really tough books about globalization and the political economy (what am I doing with my life...) so we thought it would help us to get a little change of scenery to kick us into "work mode." For those of you who don't know this, "work mode" is a term procrastinators use to justify their uselessness. If I'm not in "work mode" I can't do my work, and getting into "work mode" sometimes requires multiple days' worth of wasted hours.

Anyway, Brent and I had already had exactly six and a half days' worth of wasted hours to do this reading, so it all came down to the final 6 hours until our reading had to be done and work e-mailed to our professor. To get into "work mode" we decided to go to Brent's house in Avon, CT (only 25mins away from school) so that we could "spread out." I put "spread out" in quotes because it's another procrastination tactic. If I don't feel properly "spread" I can't get into "work mode."

Brent's parents were away for the weekend, so this would give us an entire house to "spread out" in, therefore putting us into "work mode." As it turns out, we can't get into "work mode" without "getting it out of my system" time. We needed to waste at least an hour on TV to get that not-doing-work feeling out of our systems. Apparently six and a half days of wasted time was not quite enough to cleanse ourselves of everything work-related. We decided to watch an episode of "Supernatural" (one of our many TV on DVD obsessions) to "get it out of our system" in our newly "spread out" location:

Next, we had to "set up." Setting up is another important delaying tactic because it can waste anywhere from five minutes to five hours, depending on the kind of delaying one needs. Brent and I wasted at least an hour and a half "setting up" our candle. Brent bought a candle and shoved it in the top of a beer bottle and gave it to me as a present. I can't think of anything more romantic than a candle shoved in a beer bottle candlestick. Here are 3 of the 18 or so pictures I took of it (obviously to waste time):

Next, we had an unforeseen "distraction." Distractions are also important to procrastination. This particular distraction was the fact that I quickly put my finger through the flame, a trick I learned as a little kid (as did at least 90% of America) but something Brent had never seen before in his life. He shouted at me, "What are you doing???!!!!! Why did you do that!!! Are you okay???" Obviously I had to make him try it. He stared down the candle for about 20 minutes in utter disbelief:

He would approach the candle, get closer, closer... then whip his finger away. He was actually convinced that I must have some sort of flame-retardant skin and that he would be horribly burned if he tried it:

Finally he did it, didn't blow up in flames and die, and we could move on.

Here, of course, was another unforeseen "distraction":

To a couple of bored college students trying not to get too deeply into "work mode," this was probably the most exciting thing that could have possibly happened. Our candle was dripping wax over the glass bottle. This opened up a whole new world of possibilities for our beer bottle candlestick. What if we covered it completely? What if we made a business out of this? What if we quit school and spent the rest of our lives selling wax-covered beer bottle candlesticks? You think I'm just saying all of this to be funny, or at the very least exaggerating, but I'm not. We actually spent a ridiculous amount of time discussing how to market our wax-covered beer bottle candlesticks and all sorts of different ideas for melting patterns. I believe our most intricate candle idea was to melt wax in the shape of a willow tree on top of the beer bottle using green and brown candles and wire for branch and limb support.

We immediately ran out to CVS where we bought two boxes of candles in various colors. On the way back, we picked up sandwiches at Subway where we discovered a little red barn-type building next door for sale. We wrote down the phone number to call because we decided this would be our wax-covered beer bottle candlestick shop.

When we got back to Brent's house, we were so excited to try out the new colors on our candle that we just started lighting things on fire and holding them up to the candle to make it melt faster:

The sun set, day turned to night, and we actually made quite a bit of progress... on our candle.

I must say, this is quite an accomplishment:

Finally, once we had properly "spread out," "gotten it out of our system," "set up," and overcome all "distractions," we were able to get into "work mode" and finish our work just in the nick of time. And that, dear readers, is the formula to having a successful work-ethic.

Posted by lauren at October 18, 2007 03:08 AM

Comments

Posted by: brent at October 18, 2007 03:50 AM