If we wait until
we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.
-Lemony
Snicket
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
With the
final FINAL deadline for my Masters thesis now six weeks away, to the day, I’m
obviously feeling the crunch (hello and goodbye, September break – you are
spoken for!) but also really starting to miss some of the leisure activities
that have been shelved as the year has progressed. Below is a non-comprehensive
list of the things I plan to do when the thesis is done.
Read books
Oh god,
YES, BOOKS!!! Having no time hasn’t stopped me from accumulating and desiring
books, and my bookshelf is currently home to exactly 83 unread books (yes, I
did just hop up and count them) along with many, many more read ones that I’d
LOVE to have time to reread. I actively avoid libraries and bookstores because
they just add more to my to-be-read list and it feels like a painfully long
time since I could just stumble across a new book and sit and indulge in it
right then and there.
Watch movies
So, I heard
Wonder Woman is coming out – oh, missed another one. There’s still a
Blockbuster Video hire store proximal to me and my membership card is going to
get a workout these Christmas holidays as I binge my way into the modern
cinematic era.
See my friends
Supposing
any of them even remember me, I am really looking forward to having the time to
actually see my friends. Not just
liking their posts on FB; not just giving them an apologetic wave on my way
past their classroom to do my photocopying; not just indefinitely rescheduling
lunch with them. I miss having the time to go for our weekly walks and play in
the park with my nephewling and wander around Southbank browsing the markets
chatting even though it’s always the same stuff for sale. I miss having the
time somewhere in my foreseeable
future in which I could fly to Rockhampton or Gladstone for a weekend to spend
time with my more distant friends. Studying and teaching full-time has been
impossible to balance with sustaining non-daily relationships and I am so
grateful to have the amazing (and understanding) friends I’ve got. I’m excited
to see more of all of you.
See my family
As above.
While I’m quite sure my parents haven’t forgotten they have a daughter, it would
be prudent to remind them more frequently to ensure this never happens. Also I
miss them. I would like to find more time to visit with my cousins and grandma,
who are relatively local, and to get to New Zealand more to see my family over
there. Everyone is very supportive of me and my study, of course, and I’m
grateful for that encouragement and belief in me, but it sucks how much time
it’s sapping from me at this crunch-time point.
Watch TV
People are
always like, “Are you up to date with Supernatural?” “Have you watched
Battlestar Galactica?” “Did you ever end up finishing Hannibal?” I have SO MUCH
television to catch up on, and also have other great shows coming out later
this year that I’m invested in: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, for
one, and Stranger Things, which are both releasing their second season right
after my thesis is submitted. How fateful is that??!
WRITE!!
The one
you’re all waiting to hear. Yes! The weekly ritual of devoting two hours on a
Wednesday night to creative writing has been cute, but is hardly a replacement
for good, wholesome writing time. I’m looking forward to whole weekends where I
get lost in a scene and have to be reminded to eat. When half my brain is stuck
in a guilt cycle of “You should really be
working on something else right now, shouldn’t you…?” it’s been impossible
to make any real progress on my actual books this year. I’m eager to shrug
something off and replace it with book writing.
Now all I
need to do is maintain the illusion that finishing the thesis will clear out my
schedule completely, and to forget that the thesis deadline falls at the start
of reporting season at school, and to forget that report cards are followed by
Year 2 swimming week, and to forget that swimming week is followed by classroom
clean-up… I need a holiday from my life.
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