2-24: You're My Boy, Vuk! (or A Day in the Life)

The adaptation-level phenomenon, according to that intro to psychology class I was theoretically awake for two years ago, is the ability of the human psyche to adapt to conditions and treat both difficulties and stimuli for happiness as relative--for instance, an investment banker who has to worry about the account and its portfolios (or whatever it is grown-ups worry about) doesn't inherently consider life any easier or harder than does a Mongolian yak herder who gets up at the crack of dawn for the long day of bare-handed wolf-boxing ahead of him in defense of his erstwhile flock.

Pictured: Look, I tried, I really did. But there are just currently no pictures out there of yak herders throwing down with wolves mano el pata, and although I think I can see myself making it my life's mission to correct that, for now I just typed in "fuckin' epic" and posted the first thing I found that wasn't a demotivational poster. Enjoy this picture, and I appreciate your understanding.

My point being, I have a paper due tomorrow. It is five pages long. In preceding semesters, I used to sneeze five-page papers. Literally, just *Inhale--BAM* and there it would be, a brief on tuberculosis in Russian prisons. I could do them in my sleep. I could knock them out in hours prior to a class. I could knock them out laughing brashly, dictating them to my second as I fought duels in the SRC over small matters of honour (the "u" is entirely necessary).

Pictured: Your number-one reason to join Goucher Fencing.

I think that not having written any papers in two months has altered my perspective. Perhaps it's the sleepiness of a Sunday, or the lure of the entire city out there (despite the indolent roar of the koshava), waiting to be explored, but for whatever reason, these meager five pages are the last thing I want to take on right now.

So I thought I'd give you, in relatively chronological order, things that I have discovered, experienced, or realized throughout a day of "doing my paper"

1. Calves take a while to get sore after you really dig into them, but believe you me, you will wake up the next day and feel it.
2. I sneaked into the kitchen and almost made it to the breadbox before host-grandmom appeared behind me like an eldritch shade. Before I could protest my self-sufficiency, she had cut me three pieces of bread. I think I'll try abseiling from the roof next time.
3. I sat down to type my paper. Metallica happened.
4. While we're at it, we've decided that James Hetfield is entirely too cuddly to be the lead singer of Metallica. Seriously, Google image "James Hetfield smile". I'll wait.
5. "Distitofication" is not a word, regrettably. All the same, I think we need a word to describe how Yugoslavia lost Tito.
6. I had chicken cutlet and yellowbeans today for lunch. Not kidney beans, I mean like greenbeans, but yellow. Tasted about the same (e.g. delicious), but left me rather confused.
7. Metallica happened again. Shit.
8. It's getting darker later! Tangibly! Civil twilight hit at around 5:45, which is about 35 minutes later than my first day here.
9. I'm torn between two books: On Combat, a well-researched treatise on the psychological, physiological, societal, and emotional stresses of combat, and Gods of Mischief, the fascinating memoir of a reformed con who spent three years of his life infiltrating the psychotic Vagos MC in an effort to bring it down. Kindle, you're busting my balls.
10. Call me patriotic, but there's something about these whiny little European sirens that just doesn't provide the menace of the spinning cherries on top of an American Crown Vic.
11. Serbian profanity is creative and vicious. We English-speakers really need to step it up. Here are some choice translations, and keep in mind that these are the family-friendly ones:
1. "May your mother recognize you in a hamburger"
2. "May your mother kiss your picture on a traffic light (read-may you be killed in a traffic accident)"
3. "Graze on my balls like a priest would on cold cabbage rolls"
4. "May God give you to search for your children with a Geiger counter"
12. Applause is a democracy. Think about it.
13. I kind of have the urge for a motorcycle again. Although if I do it this time, it'll be smarter and after school. I can be patient, I swear!
14. Tool's "Lipan Conjuring" slowed down by 800% is actually really good to do work by. Don't ask.
15. About halfway into this paper, I realized the latest two paragraphs were basically posthumously scolding Tito's Yugoslavia. Awkward rewrite, engage!
16. I experienced a marked increase in productivity when I moved from my uncomfortable chair to my bed. It's amazing how tanked your mental processes become when you twitch to get more comfortable every thirty seconds.

And that's when I decided that I had wrung out my thoughts as thoroughly as I could for tonight, and decided to make any edits necessary tomorrow morning, as the length is good. I think it'll work out alright, and in the venerable words of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, "Fuck this shit, I'm watching Cowboy Bebop and going to bed."

Okay, I may have taken artistic license with that quotation, but I'm sure Vuk agreed with the sentiment after making all 'dem letters.

Srpski reć dnevni: Odugovlačenje (одуговлачење): Procrastination (what were you expecting, "hard work and diligence"? Sucker.)