Emergency Post, Sunday Comic: (Zhe Plahn)
2003-10-03 - 11:57 a.m.
10/02/03. Made all but one of my quotas for the day (or so I thought). Straightened things out with loans and bank accounts, paid the rent and made sure that I had all my shots for school (still have to get the TB shot). Cleaned the fridge, after discovering that it had been infected by a mysterious black goo from the lands of beyond. Made it to physics very nearly on time. Met no less than seven people all campus, most of whom play AD+D and answer to made-up names, and picked up some goldfish on the side. Did the dishes, studied for classes, and totally forgot to go to the lecture series at RPI. Eventually, I will get Thursdays up to 100%.
Failed a class, Intro to logic. I thought the test was on Oct.3, could have sworn that�s what he said in class, but on the syllabus it says Oct.2, so there�s nothing to argue. It says in big letters on the syllabus, right next to the test dates, that if you miss one of the tests, there�s no way to make it up, no excuse you can give, and no possibility of passing the class. Logically, I�m screwed. I emailed the teacher and he confirmed my preliminary quantification of assrammage, to a degree of precision that was strikingly prison-like. I realized at some point that I owe it to a lot of people to succeed at SUNY. After all, I�m here to show RPI what I can do, I�m here, to show Mitch what I can do, to show MSSM and the podunk town of Exeter what I can do. I owe it to Don and to all those kids on campus that told me �man, one of these days, we�re gonna hear about you man...*puffpuff* they�ll be like �jason duane, the guy that invented this great thing and took over that little country, and married that supermodel that was abducted by those two headed aliens�...well, of course you know, it�d be The Inquirer *puffpuff* but we�d all be like �dude yea, I went to college with that guy� and on the cover you�d be all thumbs up *puffpuff* and "damn Mt. Ida and their devil-worshiping german-engineered semi-automatic Godzilla dinosaurs..." Most of all, I owe it to Father, to prove that I�m not only above and beyond all of my peers in my classes, but that I can survive on my own, learn to ration and spend my time appropriately, and sometimes, inappropriately for all the appropriate reasons.
the continuous and differentiable function of priorities. it occurred to me at some point to form a theory of tasks, to order my wants and needs in a system that took the weighted coefficients of their necessity into account, and the following is how i came about to build the system that follows. It seems to me, that the inefficiency of making lists is caused by the multitude of them. The idea/theoretical-reward of making lists is originally to save time (though it has been found to have a therapeutic value as well, we will disregard this fact in the possibility that the aforementioned theory will produce a system which maximizes the therapeutic value of lists as well as the efficiency value of the same), and in the pursuit of such a holy crusade, a person may be tempted to list everything, in an effort to not have to think about it as much later. The result of this wanton list-making, of course, is that you end up with a great deal of papers with old notes, revised notes, and in general, many different and disorganized pieces of paper that then need to be reorganized by the production of another list, which simply uses more paper and wastes more time. My theory is thus: one should take five minutes to answer a few brainstorm-type questions, and from these form an ultimate list, one which will not need to be revised every morning, and takes advantage of the Turin-style mental processes of the beings that we are. Unfortunately, the definitions of the next several sentences that follow may be in an odd sort of context that one may not understand unless one had read several of my former works, and has a basic understanding for what i call Reality (though i know not what it is myself). First. List the things which you need to do to survive in reality for the next year. Label these under the header P(1). Second. List the things that you need to do to survive in unreality for the year. Label these P(2). Third, List anything that occurs to you that does not fit in the first or second sets, and construct a third set P(3) which includes anything that comes to mind while constructing the first two sets (note that in the example, 'coke' occurs twice, and it is okay to write whatever in P(3), while duplicated and crossovers should not be permitted in P(1) and P(2)). the result is a three-step system of priorities, which, in itself is completely useless, until we add the stipulation that the tasks/objectives/activities in P(3) should not be started until all of the elements of P(2) are completed, and that the tasks/objectives/activities in P(2) should not be started until all of the elements of P(1) are completed. The result of this rule (which will be called P(0)) is that a reward system is created. When you complete P(1), you reward yourself to access to P(2), which in itself is a necessary step to get to any of the elements of P(3). This causes some other conventions to arise, which may be important to the person common to making lists already: 'what then, if all of the P(1) elements are completed, but one of the elements in P(1), which at the time, cannot be completed because of the time restraint placed on the task (i.e. during business hours)?' in this case, two pills of common sense should be taken. One might conversely ask, 'what if one of the elements of P(1) has an indefinite termination/completion?' To this end, one should always write any time restrictions (for things which can only take place at given times) and in this case, all of the possible times for which the task can be completed must be listed (not simply the time which you most comonly feel like doing it, unless this effects the effectiveness or personal value of the task) and simultaneously one should place a termination on so-called 'big' tasks, such as learning a something (which is a task never entirely completed). If constructed properly, a quick glance at P(1) in the morning should be able to inform the list-maker of what they're doing with their life, and P(2) should remind them of whom they are. A sample follows.
P(1)
work 3.00-11.30 (Saturday)
study physics (hour+)
physics HW (due on mondays)
study 210 (hour+)
210 HW (due on sundays)
study 201 (hour+)
Lab 201 (due on sundays)
201 HW (due on sundays)
Study Logic (hour+)
Check Loan Status
withdraw from Logic
Get Shot Monday (PPB)
Sleep
Eat
P(2)
post
japanese lessons with Marwin (hour-)
TI-83+ fix
printer server (+ink cartridge)
tune-up Jade
lift weights (30min)
AD+D (fridays)
AI (thursdays@7)
programs/game coding for RPGs (hour+)
witch hunting (Salem Trip Oct3)
climbing mountains
P(3)
laundry
shopping: food
birthdays: Nov.19, Nov.23, Mar.30, Jul.1
coke.
piano lessons
german
orge tactics
coke.
japanimation pirates
thrift shopping with Marwin
email everyone you know (in alphabetical order)
