The Art of Procrastination

Activities that indicate there is something else I need to be doing:

(1) Posting on this blog. I have eight short stories to read and one to write before 10AM tomorrow morning. Doesn't "elective" mean you get to decide whether to do the work or not? No?

(2) Sending out a flurry of emails. Note to people who got lots of emails from me in the week preceding my March 14 Asian Contract Law exam: please understand, I am not just using you to procrastinate. Out of all the people I could've sent flurries of email to, I chose you.

(3) Exploring the outer reaches of neurology and alternative healthcare web sites. Temporal lobe epilepsy questions? Speculation on the link between omega-3s and ADHD? Mad cow disease conspiracy theories? Consider me your "go-to person" on these and many other fascinating issues. Today's health-related story: a team of scientists using the latest research protocols has demonstrated the truth of the hypothesis whereby if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. CNN has more.

(4) Making minor improvements to the immediate physical environment. When I shared an apartment in France with the wonderful Beate, my German best friend of the butter-colored hair and the Ph.D. in neuroscience, we had exams during the same week, which meant we could procrastinate by giving each other makeovers. Now, if one of us mentions that we have an exam/ paper/ article/ conference to prepare for/etc., the proper response is, "Oh, you must look beautiful. And your apartment must be so clean!"

(5) Taking online personality tests. Readers have assailed me with questions... well, no they haven't... but here are the answers anyway: I am either an INFJ or an INFP, depending which version of Myers-Briggs I take and when I take it (once INFP, all other times INFJ, and INFJ makes a lot more sense). In the Star Wars version of Myers-Briggs, I am Yoda. Yes! I pity the poor Lando Calrissians. In Tolkein's Middle Earth, I am equal parts (81%) Arwen Evenstar and Eowyn, with Samwise, Gandalf, and Aragorn rounding out the top five. Rats. All those characters are cool, but I was hoping Gandalf would be #1. Maybe I should take the test again. Or... maybe I should write that story? And read those eight stories? Or maybe I should go make some more toast. Yeah. Toast.

• True story: I once took a complicated, half-hour-long online IQ test that ranked your "intelligences" (verbal, visual, mathematical, etc.) from strongest to weakest. (The fact that I bothered taking this test indicates that I must have had an exam or paper due the next day). It included "time management" as a type of intelligence, and in that, I scored as... I forget the exact number, but it boiled down to profoundly retarded. Not being satisfied with what one little online test had to say about my skills in that area, I proceeded to prove the point by spending another three hours taking online intelligence tests and looking up information on time management, which I duly bookmarked and then never looked at again.