Procrastonation Rules

Despite having taken my night-time medication, including something to help me sleep, at about 10pm yesterday evening, it was well past 2am before I got to sleep. I woke at about 7am to answer a call of nature, then climbed back into my nice warm bed and instantly fell asleep again. Sleep is always the first thing that suffers when I am depressed but I am reluctant to use the sleep medication too often because of all the other medication that I have take.

Having had extra sleep I feel a little better than I have done for a few days. But by the time I had roused myself and got dressed it was past midday, and it was snowing, so the parcels have not been picked up. However, another day in the sorting office won't hurt.

I should be doing some studying and getting myself in the frame of mind to try to write a 1500-word story for my final assignment of the course that I am working on. I still have 10 days in which to do the work but I would like to get it completed early if at all possible. Fifteen hundred words is not a lot really. Many of my posts on this blog are at least that length, but for them I can write whatever I feel like saying at the time. Having to write a piece of fiction, including at least one of a number of items, is a little more difficult.

Procrastination has set in and I really can't be bothered to pick up the folder that contains the course material and sit down to read the sections that I have not yet looked at. Perhaps I will feel a little more like doing that later this afternoon or this evening, and I am not yet working myself up into a frenzy about it.

I feel that it is more important that I am comfortable with sitting down to several hours reading than forcing myself to do something that I am just not in the mood to do. So, while I may be procrastinating I am also thinking about my wellbeing and trying to ensure that I do nothing to make me feel lower than I do already. I have other things that I can do to occupy myself. I need to write a letter to Mr Smiley, and I have my knitting too.

I am sure that I can leave the studying until tomorrow, for as Scarlett O'Hara says, "Tomorrow is another day."

How Do I Begin To Tell The Story?

I fully intended to start writing about my encounter with the NHS mental health services but I realized that it wasn't going to be an easy or a quite task to start the ball rolling. This means that instead of sitting here in the library writing an informative post about how I ended up in hospital, I have been busy procrastinating and reading other people's blogs.

One of the problems with having been out of circulation and with very little access to a computer and the Internet is that I have become hopelessly out of date with some of the blogs that I like to read. Some prolific bloggers write several posts a day (I've even been amongst that number sometimes) but fortunately some write once or twice a week or even with less frequency. So today I have spent some time catching up with what I have missed over the last five and a half weeks and not been writing what I have promised.

The difficulty is that the whole experience has indicated to me how ill I had become without really being aware of it, and although I am definitely on the mend (can you say that about mental illness?) I still find thinking about how close I came to doing something stupid rather a scary prospect. This means that sitting here in the library writing these posts is perhaps not a particularly good idea if I don't want to cause a bit of a stir by sitting here crying onto the keyboard.

As a result of these thoughts I have decided that perhaps the best thing to do is to draft out the posts off-line, in the privacy of my room, and then publish them in the library when I come into town. The first instalment will cover the day that I went to see my GP, the decision to refer me to the hospital and the appalling way in which I was treated by the psychiatric staff in the A&E department.

Further posts will look at hospital food, nurses, recreation, stupid practices and the funny side of it all. Having to tell people that you have spent a month in hospital is bad enough, but telling them it was a mental hospital is even worse. But for all that, I have made at least one good friend (who I absolutely hated when I first met her) and have encountered one doctor who I would never hesitate to see in the future because of his compassion, consideration and humility. He wasn't bad looking either!

The Thief Got More Than He Should Have Done

I have to admit that I wasn't entirely successful yesterday, and that old thief Procrastination did rather well as a result.  However, all was not lost, because I did manage to download a lot of my course resources onto my new netbook (my Christmas present to myself) and this means that when I go to the library to do some serious studying, or when I go away anywhere, I have all the materials that I need to continue studying and they are all on a computer that will fit into my handbag.  Admittedly, it will have to be one of my larger handbags, but a handbag nonetheless.

Some work on the TMAs did get completed so I am nearer completing one of them, and I have an extension for another, which is good because although I have done much of the work for that TMA, I do still have a long essay to write and as it is a Science Course it is more complex to write than an essay for a Humanities Course.  So it is going to be a busy weekend as I try to get everything back on track again.

Today, I am having a trip out.  I'm meeting my friend Mr Smiley for lunch; we haven't seen each other for ages as our last three arranged meetings have had to be cancelled owing to illness or changed working priorities.  It will be nice to see him again and catch up on the news about his lovely grand-daughters.  And lunch will probably be quite nice too.

Procrastination - The Thief Of Time

It's a well known saying, and if you read any blog by someone who is studying, procrastination is a word that occurs frequently.  I have had a bad night where I haven't managed to get much sleep. That's a bit strange as the thing that I expected to cause me sleep problems was cancelled and I should have slept quite well.  

As the making of the video has been cancelled it means that I can now spend the day working on my TMAs, something that I should have been doing for the last couple of weeks but I have managed to find reasons for not doing as much work as I should have, although to be honest depression has made concentrating on anything more complicated than a Ladybird book somewhat difficult.

So this morning I must get down to it and try to finish off a 600-word essay about the Dalai Lama.  Then it's on to another essay, this time relating to two poems.  If I knuckle down to it, it should be well within my capabilities, but that thief Procrastination comes sneaking up and distracts me.  I have decided that today I am not going to let it influence me too much, so I shall close down my browser so that I don't get lured into reading blogs, shall get my books and notes, sit down with a drink (diet Coke) and pull these essays into shape.

I am determined that Procrastination will not win today.

A Pretty Good Day

I may have procrastinated (what a fantastic word that is) a bit today but I did eventually sit down with my books and get on with some studying.  Well, not actual studying, it was a case of essay writing actually.

The first TMA for my present module requires me to write two short essays.  The first was drafted some time ago but today I spent some time going over it and polishing it so that it now reads pretty well.  It certainly answers the question posed and I think there is sufficient use of references to make it worthy of a reasonable mark.  It probably still needs a little work on it to try to cut out a few words as it is a little over the required word count, but not seriously enough to attract penalty.  I still have several weeks before it needs to be submitted so what I will probably do is take another look at it next week by which time it will be like looking at it afresh and will therefore be easier to amend as necessary.

Later I went over the notes that I had already made for the second essay and started to draft something out to see whether there was enough information in my notes to compose a meaningful answer to the second question. From this first draft it looks as though I may have judged it quite well.  I have even managed to find some interesting data from sources outside the course material to help with my argument so I am feeling quite happy that I can work at this essay over the next day or two and produce something that flows quite well.

I have also managed to do a bit more knitting so my jumper is nearing completion.  It is progressing so well that I hope to have it finished and sewn together by the time the weekend is over.  It will be nice to have something new and warm ready for the winter.

And this is my third post of the day.  Okay, so they have been shorter than many that I write, but the fact that I have been able to write three posts, each covering a completely different subject is an indicator that I am feeling quite good.  When I am feeling really bad, it can be difficult to write something, and when I have got something to say it may take some considerable time to actually compose the post.  However, today each of them have flowed from my fingers quite easily and that also helps me to feel better about myself.

This blog has been one of the better things that I have undertaken in the last few years.  In some respects I wish that I had started earlier, but perhaps I wouldn't have been ready for the commitment at that time. I think I am now, and I know that it has been useful in helping to promote my self-confidence.  So I will continue to blog, and write whatever comes into my mind at the time. While I may still find it difficult to talk to people face to face, at least I am managing to articulate how I feel and what I think through the written word.