This is my second despatch, despatch watchers, though it's my first from beneath a figurative paper mountain - the real one (as my housemates can attest) is about three feet to my left.
It's been a strange week, so far, beginning pleasantly enough on sunday morning, with me waking up and then going back to sleep and consequently failing to get to church. Monday carried on in this vein, though (and more by luck than diligence) I managed to get up in time to get into my lecture on time. This required making use of my almost-lethal bicycle, and so shouldn't really be regarded as any kind of moral victory. Anyway, digression aside, the point of this email: Work. Lots of work, to be precise. I wonder? Are the only people who volunteer for stuff on a regular basis those whose ability to manage their time is actually woefully small, unless they enlist the services of a professional Organiser and General Bully. I seem to fall rather heavily into this category, and I do have a habit of volunteering. Bollocks.
The purpose of this email, then, is a commentary on my attempts to time manage, like the good poseur, designer, would-be mobile user I am. I think (and have thought for several months) that if I only had a To Do list my life would be so much easier. Of course, the To Do list is a thing requiring several core objects: 1. Paper, headed 'To Do'; 2. A writing implement to write on the paper with. So far so good, obtaining either of these two is not at all difficult. There are problems further ahead though - where do you put the piece of paper? With the vast panache in such matters possessed only by the truly messy, I have nowhere to put a To Do list, and I have to organise myself to create somewhere to put it. This almost certainly requires a To Do list - catch 22, damn and blast! The place to put such a list, in office mythology at least, is on the notice board. I don't have a notice board, nor do I possess the currency neccessary to obtain one post haste. Foiled again, I must organise my finances to get such a thing (surely number 4 on the To Do list which I will forget I have thought of momentarily). Hmmmm.
I'd really like a notice board, because then I could put really useful things on it, like the phone numbers of friends I keep collecting on scraps of paper - at least until they're added to my computer-based phone book. Or even useful and interesting flyers - think of the possibilities, why I might even see all the films on at the Campus cinema that I want to, or something equally edifying. The notice board concept is a good one. It has merit. It has charm. It'll never happen. There is light at the end of the tunnel though: On a recent visit to (housemate) Ben's room I noticed he had a To Do list written on a piece of paper and blu-tacked to the wall! Genius! Rapture!
I'm off to find the blu-tack, but I haven't organised myself to tidy my room yet...
Matt