Pareto efficiency
I keep odd hours these days.
My usual schedule is this: I wake around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, in time to have a 3-slice of salami and 2-slice of cheese sandwich while I watch the sun set--or rather, while I watch the sky turn all the way black. I haven't actually seen the sun in almost a month. I typically spend an hour or two puttering around, reading Wikipedia entries, responding to emails, seeing if Len has put up a new blog post, and so forth. Then I tend to head out to a library--if it's a Tuesday, I go straight to the Dag Hammarskjöld to read the new Economist. Other days I mix it up between the Dag, the Ekonomikum, the Karin-Boye, and the Carolina if they have something in that I've ordered. I spend a couple hours reading and browsing, though not nearly as much as I used to. It's a forty-five minute walk each way. I'm usually home by 6 or 7, and I spend a few hours reading. I have felt lately that my mind has grown fat and disgusting and I am constantly irritated that I feel I am not the intellectual match for the professional economists and political theorists that I spend my time reading. There is so much to learn, and such an urgency to learn it, though there are no deadlines save for those of my own construction.
At any rate, around 9 or 10 I tend to make my crude dinner, which I have begun to refer to as Bachelor Chow. I eat it while watching a couple episodes of downloaded TV--often West Wing these days, since I finally got bored with House and I refuse to get into Lost for no reason at all.
Then I tend to have a couple MSN conversations, write emails, check the blogs, etc. By about 11:30 I find myself restless and disgruntled, so I bundle myself up in my wholly inadequate outdoor clothing and go for long walks in the cold steel rain that's been falling for seventeen days.
I usually get home around 1 or so. I wind down by watching another episode of West Wing and by reading a bit, then get to bed around 2:30 or 3. I lay there for an hour or so, suddenly possessed by wild ambition, thinking of all the things I intend to do the next day (construct parliamentary systems, write elaborate critiques of Jaroslav Vanek, etc) and eventually give up, turn on the light, and do some reading and writing until I can't stay awake anymore, which is usually around 4:30.
This is not a good habit.
It also means I rarely see my corridormates, who for some reason "sleep." I'm in another three-week break in my classes, so the only people I see with any regularity are Caroline, who I meet for a regular Monday coffee, Piotr on Saturday afternoons, and Ashley for weekly movies. Then there are the parties, of course. There are always the parties. I intend to go to one shortly in Sarah's corridor (I saw her at ICA yesterday, incidentally, with some scrawny blonde Swede who I couldn't resist terrifying) which promises to be awkward. I will stagger over there only after the regular ration of four shots of bourbon in quick succession which I have found enables me to find having the same conversation over and over to be tolerable.
What I'm Reading
Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: the Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
Mohammad Yousaf, Afghanistan- the Bear Trap.
David Callahan, Unwinnable Wars: American Power and Ethnic Conflict.
Geoffrey Woglom, Modern Macroeconomics. Yes, this is a college textbook. So what? You wanna make something of it?
My usual schedule is this: I wake around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, in time to have a 3-slice of salami and 2-slice of cheese sandwich while I watch the sun set--or rather, while I watch the sky turn all the way black. I haven't actually seen the sun in almost a month. I typically spend an hour or two puttering around, reading Wikipedia entries, responding to emails, seeing if Len has put up a new blog post, and so forth. Then I tend to head out to a library--if it's a Tuesday, I go straight to the Dag Hammarskjöld to read the new Economist. Other days I mix it up between the Dag, the Ekonomikum, the Karin-Boye, and the Carolina if they have something in that I've ordered. I spend a couple hours reading and browsing, though not nearly as much as I used to. It's a forty-five minute walk each way. I'm usually home by 6 or 7, and I spend a few hours reading. I have felt lately that my mind has grown fat and disgusting and I am constantly irritated that I feel I am not the intellectual match for the professional economists and political theorists that I spend my time reading. There is so much to learn, and such an urgency to learn it, though there are no deadlines save for those of my own construction.
At any rate, around 9 or 10 I tend to make my crude dinner, which I have begun to refer to as Bachelor Chow. I eat it while watching a couple episodes of downloaded TV--often West Wing these days, since I finally got bored with House and I refuse to get into Lost for no reason at all.
Then I tend to have a couple MSN conversations, write emails, check the blogs, etc. By about 11:30 I find myself restless and disgruntled, so I bundle myself up in my wholly inadequate outdoor clothing and go for long walks in the cold steel rain that's been falling for seventeen days.
I usually get home around 1 or so. I wind down by watching another episode of West Wing and by reading a bit, then get to bed around 2:30 or 3. I lay there for an hour or so, suddenly possessed by wild ambition, thinking of all the things I intend to do the next day (construct parliamentary systems, write elaborate critiques of Jaroslav Vanek, etc) and eventually give up, turn on the light, and do some reading and writing until I can't stay awake anymore, which is usually around 4:30.
This is not a good habit.
It also means I rarely see my corridormates, who for some reason "sleep." I'm in another three-week break in my classes, so the only people I see with any regularity are Caroline, who I meet for a regular Monday coffee, Piotr on Saturday afternoons, and Ashley for weekly movies. Then there are the parties, of course. There are always the parties. I intend to go to one shortly in Sarah's corridor (I saw her at ICA yesterday, incidentally, with some scrawny blonde Swede who I couldn't resist terrifying) which promises to be awkward. I will stagger over there only after the regular ration of four shots of bourbon in quick succession which I have found enables me to find having the same conversation over and over to be tolerable.
What I'm Reading
Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: the Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
Mohammad Yousaf, Afghanistan- the Bear Trap.
David Callahan, Unwinnable Wars: American Power and Ethnic Conflict.
Geoffrey Woglom, Modern Macroeconomics. Yes, this is a college textbook. So what? You wanna make something of it?
posted by Eccarius | 11:59 AM
1 Comments:
I created it.
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