failing like never before

Finals week; that wonderful time of the season characterized by late nights, early mornings, hours of unbridled fun in the library, and most of all, incredible amounts of procrastination. I recently decided that every time I get too restless to study, I should get up and run a few miles. Monday turned out to be a particularly restless day, as I ended up running ten miles in the afternoon (two full perimeter runs (four miles each), and a truncated north-campus loop (two miles)). The end result was that I got very little work done and utterly failed at curing my restlessness, as each successive trek through the outside world only served to fuel my desire to be away from my studies. Obviously, I have since abandoned that failure of a studying technique.

But onto other more exciting news. My roommate started the process of moving out yesterday and so today I learned that he owned all the knives in our apartment. Which is why I made lunch today using nothing but a pair of chopsticks, and an ancient pocket knife. Presumably, for the next few days I will be eating a lot of instant noodles. Which is fine, because that was essentially my plan anyway.

I was wandering through the deluge of old data that I've accumulated on my disks and discovered a high school recording of me playing Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" piano concerto, accompanied by the community orchestra (which was, to put it nicely, not a very good orchestra). I was initially mildly impressed by the solid skill and slight bravado with which I performed, but then immediately became extremely depressed when I realized how much my piano skills have atrophied over the last four years.

I bought a new phone recently (Nexus One) and have been discovering the joys afforded by the marvels of modern technology. Perhaps the most shocking of its features (when compared to my previous phone), is that it doesn't lock up every time the screen is touched. The Nexus One, being a rather older model, superceded by various other phones including the Nexus S, was relatively quite cheap (only $260 unlocked and without contract), compared to the ~$600 it might cost to buy a current, unlocked, contract-free, top-of-the-line model. Nevertheless, $260 is still $20 more then what I paid for the stolid and trustworthy IBM x60s that I'm currently typing away at. There's been a lot of complaints on the tubes (i.e. from guys like ESR) about how American cellular providers are racking up exorbitant profits by locking consumers into unfair contracts that span several years. But the fact of the matter is, modern smart phones are prohibitively expensive and the only way most Americans are even going to consider buying them, is if they don't have to realize the full price of the product up front. Thus contracts that appear to partially subsidize the cost of the phone, but in reality simply act as a payment plan. Its the American way; buy crap you don't really need with money you don't have right now.

But I digress. Yesterday night, we realized that the window in our room opens. This idea, which has apparently been gestating in our minds for the past year, only to hatch a few days before we move out, was still quite welcome as it served to ventilate our every-so stuffy room.

I'll be doing undie-run tonight, despite the looming presence of two more finals in the very near future. But I figure it'll be worth it since I've never gone and this will be my last chance. Amusingly enough, they have yet to change the picture for the undie-run Facebook group in several years. It remains a picture someone took my first quarter here, containing a streaming mass of humanity with my then-roommate in the middle, wearing nothing but his underwear and for some inexplicable reason, a tie.

And with that, I return to other acts of procrastination.