Not to be confused with the informative cheer "The beer is here", the fear to which I am referring is the exam-induced fear of failing school. The Fear is and always has been my prime and, realistically, only motivator to study for exams. I was wondering when it would show up (it's a little late this year) - it hit around 10:30 pm this evening. A couple of points about The Fear:
- The Fear is all-encompassing: once it shows up, I can shake it for an hour or two at a time, but not more.
- The Fear is unquenchable: to the extreme. It doesn't matter how much work I do - The Fear does not go away until after exams is done (it also makes a brief appearance on 'release of marks' day).
- The Fear is irrational: to the point of being hilarious to everyone but me. If I stop paying attention, The Fear can convince me that I will perform so badly that not only will I not be allowed to be a lawyer, but that they may retroactively take away my old degree and tell me that I never was a scientist either.
- The Fear is exam-specific: I have another special and even more horrendous state for paper-writing: The Horror. The Horror is a mix of terror and loathing - a reaction to a things that I cannot understand how to defeat. You may have noticed that I was battling The Horror for most of reading week in November. The Horror is more intermittent - it strikes out of the blue and completely paralyzes me for an hour or two at a time, then disappears as suddenly as it came. I expect a big bout of The Horror after my exams are done when I remember that I need to produce a short paper and a 40pg paper in four days.
In response to The Fear I continued to study and did not go to the movies as I had originally planned to do. I did, however, go for dinner with Mark to Utopia, which was (a) the closest thing I have had to a date in months; and (b) both lovely and tasty.
When I did finally burn out, I did something completely shocking - I flew into a cleaning frenzy. F'real. My room (and I will be the first to admit it) looked like someone had ransacked it and then set a bomb off, and then someone else had come through and robbed whatever else was worth taking from the rubble. And I went to town. I tidied, I threw shit out, I folded, hampered, organized, sorted, swept and I even freaking mopped. Which leads me to my next point...
I HATE SWIFFERS.
Here is my problem. It seems to me that there was once a time where people valued making enough money to buy quality items that they could use over and over again. To a large extent, it seems like there has been a shift in this way of thinking. I see the whole Swiffer marketing strategy as saying "You are important/wealthy enough to be able to throw this out, and you deserve to do so." I completely disagree with the idea and the whole enterprise really grates on me.
I like mops, and I hate the idea of a Swiffer, but my roomate thinks that mops are dirty and she bought a Swiffer, so we have one. I have used it to mop before (aforementioned mop-ban), but never to...I don't know what to call it, because it isn't sweeping. Dry-mopping*? I mean, I guess I just have to accept that Swiffer is an action word; I have never used it to Swiffer before. I had to tonight, though, because it was too late to whip out The Boss**. It sucked. So inefficient and unsatisfying. I'd take The Boss and a mop any day.
*The household equivalent to dry-humping: just as consciously unsatisfying and almost impossible to refrain from internally mocking yourself while engaged in the doing of?
**The Boss is my tiny yellow vacuum, actually labeled The Boss. The Boss is awesome and pretty much changed my life, though not as much as my ipod, my bmx, or moving out of the horrid Annex did. My mom bought it for me.
When I did finally burn out, I did something completely shocking - I flew into a cleaning frenzy. F'real. My room (and I will be the first to admit it) looked like someone had ransacked it and then set a bomb off, and then someone else had come through and robbed whatever else was worth taking from the rubble. And I went to town. I tidied, I threw shit out, I folded, hampered, organized, sorted, swept and I even freaking mopped. Which leads me to my next point...
I HATE SWIFFERS.
Here is my problem. It seems to me that there was once a time where people valued making enough money to buy quality items that they could use over and over again. To a large extent, it seems like there has been a shift in this way of thinking. I see the whole Swiffer marketing strategy as saying "You are important/wealthy enough to be able to throw this out, and you deserve to do so." I completely disagree with the idea and the whole enterprise really grates on me.
I like mops, and I hate the idea of a Swiffer, but my roomate thinks that mops are dirty and she bought a Swiffer, so we have one. I have used it to mop before (aforementioned mop-ban), but never to...I don't know what to call it, because it isn't sweeping. Dry-mopping*? I mean, I guess I just have to accept that Swiffer is an action word; I have never used it to Swiffer before. I had to tonight, though, because it was too late to whip out The Boss**. It sucked. So inefficient and unsatisfying. I'd take The Boss and a mop any day.
*The household equivalent to dry-humping: just as consciously unsatisfying and almost impossible to refrain from internally mocking yourself while engaged in the doing of?
**The Boss is my tiny yellow vacuum, actually labeled The Boss. The Boss is awesome and pretty much changed my life, though not as much as my ipod, my bmx, or moving out of the horrid Annex did. My mom bought it for me.