Procrastination

I sit at the kitchen table, attempting to study because I want to pass my course - Writing 101, and I have a lot of reading to complete. A long time, 44 years, has elapsed since my last high school English class. I enjoy reading. Patricia Cornwell, Anne McCaffrey, and J. K. Rowling each have a pull on my attention when there is something of importance to do. Even reading the classics like Jane Austin, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens will wave at me as I pass by. I have many books set aside to read, but now I have little time. My current book reading is Harry Potter. I pick up that book and read, instead of studying. In high school, I thought I wanted to read Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. I checked the book from the library; I even read a few pages. I renewed that book over 10 times and carried the book to home and back to school. I finally realized that Frankenstein’s monster was never to become a part of who I am. I did love T.H White’s, Once and Future King, a spell binding story of King Arthur. It was made into the Broadway play and Hollywood movie “Camelot.” I have L’ Mort d’ Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory to read on my Kindle. I am enchanted by the Knights of the Round Table, the ladies in waiting and the situations, and, of course, the lives of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot, an epic love triangle amongst the royals. I did not have a difficult time in reading that particular book and I want to read it again. Will I stop what I am doing to read that book? Probably not. Back to the subject of school. Verbs, adverbs, nouns, pronouns. Adjectives, preposition, conjunctives, not to mention interrogatives. I have a question: gerund, is that something used in a salad? I was confused in high school and my grades, though passing, showed a lack of concentration and ample confusion. Was my confusion due to my lack of interest and lack of applying myself to the task at hand? I believe my confusion was more like bringing a horse to water and trying to make it drink. I was in class but I was not thirsty enough to drink in the knowledge offered for free. Now it is different. I am paying for this class and my success or failure depends on me, alone. In a flash, I find myself up and rinsing dishes for the dishwasher. I find a counter which suddenly needs to be cleaned. Objects here and there that need to be placed in their respective, rightful places. I find myself in a spare room used for storage. I begin to pick and poke through the detritus in that space. I consider the tossing of a box and face reality. I pull myself away from the storage space and begin reading again. I make a few notes and read some short stories. The plus is the stories are short. I look at the syllabus again, and read another story. I find myself distracted, again. There is a basket of laundry in the spare room. I pull the basket out and see if anything can be resurrected. Yes. I have recently started a new job and I will need clothing. Some have some issues but I believe I can put things to right and increase my wearable wardrobe. My mind wanders outside of the house. I have some repairs to do, but they have all waited patiently for some time. I cannot afford to have them call out to me and distract me from this goal. Procrastination: the act of delaying. According to the on line Free Dictionary by Farlex, it is: To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness. Funny, I don’t feel particularly lazy. The same posting is using the definition To postpone or delay needlessly, in the second verb. Procrastination: the state of mind where we put off until later, what we should be doing now. Procrastinate. I look up the word in another source. The word procrastinate (just before procreation and after proconsul) in my dictionary. I can relate to that word. Why else would it take so long to take the courses for essentially a 2 year degree. Lord Chesterfield is quoted “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” I am always able to put off until tomorrow. The laundry begins to mock me, begging me to stop studying. I ignore the laundry as it has waited this long, another day or two will not make a difference. I am determined to finish this class, and will continue to follow the syllabus. That does not guarantee that I will not do a repair or two outside, in the meantime. Maimon, Elaine P, Peritz, Janice H., Yancey, Kathleen Blake. The Writer’s Resource, fourth edition. New York, NY. McGraw Hill. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Home and Office Edition. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, Publishers; Springfield, Massachusetts Copyright 1995 The Free Dictionary http://www.thefreedictionary.com/procrastination 1/30/14 Brainy Quote http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lordcheste163891.html 1/30/14