The past week or so I've gotten significantly better at the whole "buckling down" thing. Clearly, considering the amount of study breaks I take during said "buckling down", I haven't mastered it yet, but practice makes perfect. For example, I just studied for an hour straight. Like, real studying; reviewing studying. Crazy. Granted, I've been at the library for 2.5 hours and spent the first 1.5 on the UW Job Center attempting to figure out how I'm going to fund the advancement of my education, let alone where I'm going to live in 3 weeks time. But whatever; I spent a full hour actually studying.

I am now fully convinced that unless there is some threat to my success I have no motivation to do anything. Or, at least, do anything above and beyond what my social life time constraints allow. There's a slight chance that I won't be able to major in Com. Dis., aka there's a slight chance I may have a mental breakdown 'round about...Tuesday night. I'm not scared, not as much as I feel I should be. At least I pretend I'm not scared. Like I said, I don't even know where I'll be living in a few weeks time, so anything that dares to threaten my pathetic excuse for a "plan" isn't exactly welcome at the moment. Knowing what I'm majoring in the one thing that I've got above other people, the one thing that I've accomplished that they haven't, the one step in life that makes things that much easier.

There's no use in me claiming to know anything more than that, to pretend to schedule or adhere to anything more than that. Planning things is one of my epic failures in life. I have ideas, I always have ideas. I make my own plans...in my head. Sometimes I even get them down on paper. On occasion I'll share them with other people. Rarely to they ever become a reality. I was supposed to road trip to Colorado last summer. I was supposed to drive to Florida over Spring Break. I'm supposed to be getting on a plane to Santo Domingo in three weeks. I'm supposed to run a half marathon in six weeks.

Only one of these has a minute chance of actually happening; and it's the least fun event on the list.

I don't want a big, extravagant, detailed plan. I don't want to know what I'm doing every week of every month of every year from here on out. But it would be nice to be able to follow through on the little things every now and then. It would be nice to have things planned out in advance so as not to run around frantically at the last second every single time another issue arises.

Actually following through on that half marathon is one of the reasons I want to live at home this summer. It's a shitty reason, but it's a reason. I'll be able to train, I'll have someone to call me at 4:30 a.m. every morning and make me get up to run with them, I'll have finally completed something I made up my mind to do. It's something insignificant, it's something small, it's something that I can do next year and every year after that; but if I do it now...if I do it now I may be able to put an end to this viscous cycle of me making empty promises to myself, of me getting myself excited and enamored in my grandeur plans to live a fuller life only to keep "waiting"...waiting another year, another month, another never.

Graduate from UW Madison. Grad school at U of M. That's all I've got now. That's my grand adventurous "plan". Sure, I'd like to throw a few road trips in there, a couple weeks in Europe, some volunteering in whatever third world country catches my eye at the moment. Sure, I'd like to fully live up to the whole "college experience" of spontaneity and bildung adventures. But the whole 'one-step-at-a-time' theory seems to be taking hold here. Come on School, just let this one happen.

And yes, I know it will all be fine. It will all work out. But it's finals time so I'm allowed to complain, just a little bit.

Hey look, here's an adorable baby chinchilla!