In Which a Holiday is not so much being Wasted as Pleasantly Frittered Away

(Sorry about the doubleposting: although this post and the one below it are being posted almost simulataneously, this on's only going up now because of the upcoming lack of internet. If Canada Day Adventures are what you want to hear about, but you only have time/inclination to read one post, skip this one. Otherwise, read on!)

Maybe it’s tragic that in the mere week of winter holiday vouchsafed us (oh yes; “vouchsafed”) I look unlikely to achieve any great feats of leisure or of scholarly application. People I know are going to the ski fields (with dubious success, granted), and to Brisbane, Canada, camping, and conferences of more than one mysterious variety. I’m rather enjoying this not-doing-anything-much deal, though. I go to parties and karaoke and smallish gatherings, and get up at 10 or 11, read non-academic books and drink tea in a park opposite the sea and write enormous blog posts. Am I wasting my holiday? Maybe I am, but I don’t know what I would rather be doing which would leave me more relaxed afterwards. A week is scarcely time to have a proper away-holiday like skiing of worthwhile proportions and then get back and unwind in time for Monday, or so it seems to me. If "a week" comes, in my future life, to be the maximum length for a holiday (God Forbid), then doubtless I’ll have to readjust my casual approach to time, but in the meanwhile, there you go. I’m heading to the Farm with my family this weekend, so that’s something, anyway.

In fact, this leisurely approach to time is something which pretty much characterises my life. I did a project for 2nd year Psych on Procrastination once, years ago, which was utterly unilluminating, mainly because all the studies I read seemed to conclude that it was sort of pointless to procrastinate. “Really?” one thought, “Gosh, thanks for that insight, I could probably write a heaps better paper on this, though, one that concluded anything new at all. And I will, just after I finish this game of Spider Solitaire.”

I procrastinate about everything, even procrastination. We have bottles of M&Ms sorted by colour on the top of our kitchen cupboard because of some exam procrastination which we put off until after the exams, once.

I also routinely put off necessary work when it comes to reading maps. I’ll check a route in the street directory and memorise the first two thirds of the way, putting off the last bit until I get closer, and then get completely lost at that point, because what did I think would happen? That I would miraculously have a really well lit red light at the crucial point, giving me a chance to figure out the end of the journey? I’m not alone in this sort of thing, mind. Whenever we go to a restaurant, my sister always insists on having her order taken last, to allow her the maximum amount of time to put off deciding what she wants to eat.

In fact, my entire undergraduate degree(s) could be considered procrastination. Certainly that was how I meant it. I didn’t study Latin because I thought it would make me a better doctor or a culturally enriched individual, I was consciously putting off having to figure out what to do with my life. Which is a decision I’ve ultimately sort of defaulted on. I’m doing Medicine, so presumably I’ll be a doctor eventually, but that’s hardly been the aim of my youth so much as a career I eventually “oh, all right”-ed into. (Note: I am in fact actually rather enjoying it, and think that being a doctor will be swell and all, I’m just saying that I hope I didn’t beat anyone into the course who could only have been happy as a doctor).

Meanwhile, almost all of my school friends have real jobs, and the majority of them are married and real grownups. My friends are buying houses and considering having children (which are about equivalent in terms of real-grownup points, I figure). This is not something I ever thought I’d have done by now, you understand, but the further all these friends advance into the world of mortgages and 9-to-5 jobs, the wider the gap seems to be between them and my petty concerns about assignments not yet done and outfits to wear to quasi-costumed parties. I was going to write this whole post about this point, but it seems that the strangely enormous feeling that this inspires is hard to articulate. I’m impressed with you people for being so on top of your lives. Also, I make no judgement whatsoever about the order in which people choose to set about their life-goals, or what those goals may be (in my case the first goal should presumably be “set goals”), I’m just noting that a lot of the people I know have picked a different order to mine, and sometimes this seems sort of overwhelming. One forgets for a moment that these things can have no conceivable effect on my ability to get things done later in my life (although I guess someone else might buy the house that I’ll only later come to want, or something. But how would I even know?)

Maybe this ‘gap’ is a function of postgraduate study. Half the guys in my course are married (and half the girls engaged, which is sort of odd, since surely there didn’t ought to be a gender divide in the number of people married and engaged? Not until we pass that legislation, anyway), and most of the people have been “in the real world”, working full time at real jobs for at least a year before coming back to the strangely convent-like cloister of university life. Not precisely a vow of poverty, but the attenuated reality of it, and only meeting a limited pool of people, all taught that the ultimate beliefs of the institution trump any petty practical concerns we might individually have. At least in this respect, my comparative failure to achieve any kind of life milestones is an advantage. I’m not new to being told that paid work is as nothing before the altar of the Exam, or to theoretically being by definition inferior to all the people I come across in an educational context. This seems to be something that the people who’ve been highfalutin’ are marginally more likely to struggle with.

Anyway, long story short: I am pretty content with my nice little life, but I sometimes wonder if it looks really tiny from the outside. Fortunately, it doesn’t much matter if it does. Isn’t that refreshing? Your life choices are valid, Reader, so feel affirmed.

*****

This weekend I am going far away to the Distant and Foreign land of Victoria. Sort of. Well, only just. I’ll be on the other side of the border, but not more than 2km from it, I’d reckon, and for fewer than 48 hours. My mother’s family has a Farm (always capitalised, never effectively capitalised upon) there, which has even less internet than my flat. This means that you will be briefly undisturbed by my ramblings, although since it turns out that I have another post that I’ve failed to upload, there will still be one post per day, amusingly.

The Farm is about as rustic as I get: the only building is a little falling-down cabin made of corrugated iron (or to be strictly accurate, it was until last year, and that’s how it will always live on in my mind. Since the process of falling down was finally completed late last year, a slightly more stable and only marginally less primitive shed-like structure now graces that spot). This shed now has a concrete floor, which is a scandalously posh upgrade on the dirt floor of days of yore. In keeping with this ascetic aesthetic, (yesssssss... I’ve always hoped to have a good excuse to juxtapose those words) there is also no electricity, sod all mobile phone coverage, and no running water. (Yes that is an Oxford Comma, what are you going to do about it?)

I love that place (the Farm, not Oxford, although I’m sure both are lovely). Everything is cooked over an open fire, and the chimney smokes outrageously, so by the time you come home you and all your clothes smell like they’ve been smoked too, as if one were some kind of giant side of bacon or kipper or cup of lapsang souchong. As a direct result of this, I have always found the smell of woodsmoke to be really wonderfully soothing and pleasing. I always feel my mood immeasurably improved if I’m walking along a residential street in the gathering dark of a winter evening and smell someone’s fireplace. Does everyone do this?

Also, it’s one of those universal truths that in any student flat (well, any student flat I’ve ever lived in) one of the electrical things is functioning below its ideal level at all times. At present, for instance, our toaster has gone completely insane, and as an added bonus, our DVD player does pictures and background music and sound effects beautifully, but not speech at all. Which is weird, really, not to say extremely mysterious. Anyway, the nice thing about the Farm is that nothing’s supposed to work, nothing electrical anyway. It’s awfully refreshing.