New Zealand, man. Fuckin New Zealand

I aint got much to say, except

You're in the Wrong Part of Town, Buddy

I can taste the sweet freedom of winter break.  I have completed the treacherous Nine Project Week.  I have lost several days of sleep, survived many hours of car-sick feelings, and thwarted some minor hallucinations.

I return to this mortal realm only to see all of you struggling, and I would like to give you words of comfort.  It is hard!  You will be tired!  But you CAN do it, because you are all fucking fantastic.
You all make me as happy as this cleavage bird:

Please let me know if you guys need any help!  I have a lot of free time until the end of the semester.  I can research for you.  I can distract.  I can recommend games or movies or TV shows.  I can chat.  Let me help all of you!

When I was working on my projects, I found that ingesting too much caffeine and listening to instrumentals really helped me focus and write.  Also, video game music.   Lone Star is a song from a quirky indie game I picked up in a Humble Bundle.  You can tell it was designed for a touch-screen tablet or phone, but is workable on a computer as well.  It's kind of like a puzzle/action/mystery game, where the main character is on a quest to conquer some unconquerable power at great cost.

It is full of interesting, original music and incredibly silly and witty one-liners.  Colorful, yet dark pixel scenery sets a good tone for the gameplay.  The world is a little small, but there is a lot of originality behind the way it is laid out and the events that occur in it.  It's even a thought-provoking game, in a "what the heck is going on and whyyyy" kind of way.  Most indie games these days are platformers, puzzle, or physics games, so this was a refreshing game to play, and something I'd recommend to others.

Ugh.  Rainbows.  Scythians loath rainbows.

On the Merits of Procrastination

Sometimes you just can't keep going.

Your brain is fried, your mind is tired, and no matter how long you stare at the blank Word document nothing comes to mind. You can't do it. You're tapped out.

You can do one of two things in a situation like this. The first is to sit there with grim determination, gritting your teeth and trying to force your brain to do what you need it to do. This method has iffy results in my experience; more often than not I wind up sitting there for hours until my inner thoughts become silent screams of frustration. I get tense, I get sick, I go a little nuts thinking about all the work I have to do and how my life's purpose has been reduced to sitting in front of a computer trying to write something that just doesn't want to be written.

I imagine none of this is particularly good for your health.


The second option is procrastination.

Play a game. I find puzzle games in particular to be the most useful. There's this one I play on addictinggames called 3-D puzzle something or other and it calms me down every time. Organizes my thoughts. It's pretty great.

Talk to someone. Vid chat, over aim, texting. I guess you can make a phone call if you absolutely have to. If you're lucky that person will be willing to spend four to five hours on complete nonsense with you, but it will be quality nonsense and you'll wake up in the morning and crank out another 3,000 words for that novel project you've been working on all semester (Thanks, Rachel!)

And when you need just a little break, write a blog post. Write a blog post on procrastination. Get all meta on that shit.


And then get back to work.