Oobleck Oobleck Fruit

It has been long, long indeed since my last post; but you needn't worry, this post won't really be all that long either--well, maybe it'll be. My tendency when writing blog posts seems to be to try to start out clear and precise and concise, and then I veer off into descriptions and explanations and justifications, and that's a slippery slope at the end of which is a wall of text. At least I'm a lot less censorious now than when I was younger; though, of course, whether that's a good thing remains to be seen. One is always reminded that while one should try to be tolerant, simply letting everything be is sheer laziness.

And I have been awfully lazy this week, I think. When a Sanguine/Choleric starts wondering why you're so incredibly free, you know you've been very incredibly free indeed. The various responsibilities I've taken upon myself have begun piling up, and time is precious coin that I spend prodigally on fritters and toys. I should be more disciplined, I tel myself; every morning I wake up and have a stern talk to myself saying Well, look, the week's nearly over. Isn't it about time to buckle down and do something about _____? where the blank could be filled in with anything from the various group projects at school (I have 6 projects this semester that require group work, including the Final Year Project), church (I serve there, as well as in a sort-of-independent Bible Study group that I have no idea how to describe except that it's "sort of parallel to church"), the Crusade (my responsibilities there are vastly less than they were last year, but no less challenging!), the Animal Lovers' Society (the name of which is a continual embarrassment and which seems to constantly lack for manpower), and, obviously, homework. Guess which have been rather badly neglected? That's right, everything academia- and church-related. Cue the crushing guilt attack.

Take the past, say, three weeks--I haven't posted for three weeks, anyway, so I'm not telling you anything you don't already know--the past three weeks have been the first three weeks of school. And what a three weeks they have been. I include this week in the past three weeks because it's Friday and the week is as good as over. The recruitment by all the ECAs of the incoming freshmen occurred over the past three weeks; the first week was mostly Campus Crusade doing surveys, which wouldn't have been too bad except it was also the first week of classes and I was still adjusting to all the new lecturers--seriously, not a single lecturer this year was lecturing us last year. But it wasn't too bad. The second week was... oh, the second week was. The Campus Crusade decided that this year I should be leading a small group of freshmen, so they gave me a list of phone numbers and names and such to call up or otherwise contact (though calling was heavily preferred) to ask and see if they'd be interested in joining. Yeah, the Crusade is a bit pushy that way. It works, though. But I live in petrified fear of approaching strangers, even by phone, so I was procrastinating and feeling guilty all the while.

(I seem to live in a perpetual cloud of guilt for not having done stuff. Or for having done stuff I shouldn't. Of course there're verses about forgiveness and so on. On the other hand there're verses about sluggards consulting ants and about faithful servants, etc. At least the Ten Commandments doesn't say anything about Thou Shalt Not Procrastinate.)

But the calling comes later; the first three weekdays of the second week were the ECA Fair days, when every club in school opens a booth to invite new members in. Of course the Crusade had a booth; the problem is, so did the Animal Lovers' Society. Wanting to help out at both but being incapable of mitosis, I decided to just go to the booth that needed me more. As it turned out I spent a lot more time at the Animal Lovers' Society booth, being thoroughly embarrassed about being there, and smiling in what I hope was a nonthreatening manner while handing out flyers. I was at the Crusade booth for very short periods and even then wasn't really able to help much; I think the most help they got out of me was helping to pack up. It was a very tiring week, because there were also classes; I and the ALS President (friendship makes me do the strangest things) kept hurrying between the booth and classes, mostly because we were the main manpower there apart from the incoming President and the occasional helper. The rest of last year's main committee? Vanished into thin air by the looks of it.

Thursday was a pretty okay day, really; the fair had wound down, I'd started actually calling people (and gotten rejections or "this number is not available" followed by bounced email reports), and the classes that day were pretty light; and of course there was the Crusade Freshmen Vision Tea that night so I got to unwind a bit. Not to mention I'd bought one of those umbrellas whose handles look like katanas'--I've been wanting one for awhile; that day students had been allowed to set up little booths to sell things and that was one of the things they were selling. Apart from the nice handle it's also a bit larger than the average umbrella--resting on the floor it comes up to my waist, whereas most others barely get past the hip.

Thank God for small miracles, I suppose? It reminds me of RBS when one Sunday I was looking at a kitten and the thought came to my mind that really, the cuteness of small/young animals is not exactly necessary, either to us or to them. That they have that quality shows that God is something of an entertainer in addition to everything else He already is. It makes one feel better about laughing at stand-up comedy.

This week... classes. Group projects. All the things of academia, suddenly rising up like dark pillars; and I had the initial meetings with the two interested contacts (but two is a good number too, easily managed!); as it turns out I'd run into one of them at the Freshmen Vision Tea but hadn't recognised his name. Yes, I have lousy memory for names. But mostly classes. And the last two days (Wednesday and Thursday) it's been Main Committee Recruitment for the ALS, so I've had to prepare questionnaires for the hopefuls and interview them while catching up on my FYP reading material (hunting down material is hard enough, it took me two hours yesterday to figure out how to navigate the library system and even so I only got four papers that look relevant). And then I've been visiting Announce-chan in his new room, which he shares with two other Crusaders; and on two of those nights--consecutive nights, too!--I slept over in a sleeping bag on the floor. It's what led to his roommate (the aforementioned Sanguine/Choleric) telling me I was much too free. It's also what led to me drinking more vodka than I'm used to one of the nights and turning incredibly scarlet and becoming unable to walk straight (when I tried, I wound up catwalking). But I've been tired since Monday; that night there was a meeting of the discussion leaders of the House of Bread, and I kept dozing off. I was definitely not a contributing member that night. (Which is more guilt for me, whee. If I were a superhero whose powers depended on guilt I'd never ever run out of juice.)

And of course now I've gone and taken much longer than intended to type this blog post and certain other things to do have to be relegated to night-time; at least tomorrow's Saturday, but there's practice at church and FYP reports to type up (all the readings in the world don't help if your prof doesn't know they've been read!) and the accountability group in the evening, so that's that for the time of rest.

I should schedule some kind of get-away-from-everything time into my regular timetable or I shall go screamingly mad.