Finding the Perfect Gift

They say that it’s better to give than to receive. I’m not sure who the ‘they’ is that started spreading this heartfelt sentiment around but I’d be willing to bet that it was a collective corporate decision made by a secret society of the owners of all of the malls across the country. Or at least not a college student who doesn’t particularly enjoy shopping even when she has the money to spend, which isn’t very often. I agree that it’s a great feeling when a person opens the perfectly hand-selected gift you’ve just given them. However, getting that perfect gift to give them presents the problem for me.

Thinking up ideas of what to get people isn’t a really big issue. The problem is- the mall. I have a feeling that my personal hell is, in fact, a mall, either the day after Thanksgiving or the day before Christmas. I’ll be forced to shop forever while techno funk music with 3 word lyrics blasts from the speakers. But let’s focus on the mall portion of that nightmare. I know people who could live in the mall, whereas I am fed up within five minutes of setting foot in the main drag, let alone any of the stores themselves.

My mission while in the mall is simple: to get in and out as quickly as possible. I know what I want to buy. I would like to buy it, and then get out. No amount of friendliness from a commissioned salesperson is going to change my mind about that. There is a running (non-mall sponsored) challenge at my mall at home involving the Buckle and some way-too eager salespeople. The challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to walk at a normal speed (i.e. no dead sprints) to the back of the store, touch the wall, and walk back out of the store without being asked if you wanted some help. No one, to my knowledge, has done it yet. Or maybe someone has, and the employees had him or her ‘taken care of’ before they could tell anyone. I’m not saying they did, but I’m not saying they didn’t, either. I’m just saying that they really like selling pants in that store.

So that’s my take on shopping and why it’s my least favorite part of Christmas. Hey- sudden thought on avoiding the whole shopping scene: homemade gifts. My mom used to love the presents I made for her out of Popsicle sticks and construction paper in grade school. It’s the thought that counts. And besides, I’ll brave the freezer section of the grocery store over the evil that that is the mall and its long lines any day. At least the grocery store has an express lane.

Working Under Pressure

Here I am in my floor’s lounge at 2 am trying to think of a topic to write about in my column which, incidentally, was due at noon yesterday. I must have been extremely busy with important academic whatnot, you say, to have been forced to do my column so late. Uh, no. Not really. As a matter of fact, I’ve already written two cards to friends, watched a movie, done laundry, and reorganized my MP3 file list. None of which were the least bit homework related. Simply more proof that today’s greatest labor saving device is tomorrow.

I am what you might call a ‘last-minute’ type of person. I fail to understand why teachers assign many-paged papers weeks in advance. I don’t use the time. My best work (I keep telling myself) is accomplished within a few hours of any deadline. Maybe I would do my work a lot better if I did it earlier. Then again, maybe not. This is an unexplored realm for me, as I have no recollections of doing assignments early. I’m working with the facts I have. I don’t have the willpower to do the assignment in advance, so the threat of a deadline is the only thing that motivates me.

My concept of time must be a little shaky, too. I always think that I have more time than I actually do. That, or I have an alternate theory that I worked up one day when I had a paper due. I feel that time, as it inches closer to a deadline of some sort, is actually compressed by the pressure placed upon me. Therefore an hour before a deadline is not truly an hour. The compression is proportional to the amount of stress I am under. I also am trying to work in something about negative time. I haven’t gotten all of the kinks out, but I’m working on it.

Procrastination has many levels. This column is one of the lower ones. I’d rather watch a movie than write this column, but I’d rather write this column than take a calc test. Of course, I’d prefer to have a limb amputated than take a calc test, but that’s more of an issue of my mad math love than one of procrastination. The tiers of the procrastination triangle are possibly infinite. And if not, I’m more than happy to be the one to explore them and find out. Procrastination rules the nation!!

Making a Clean Sweep

I remember when cleaning my room used to be a horrible chore only forced upon me when I was being punished or when relatives were coming to visit. As closely related as those two seemed sometimes, either way I was made to go to my room and pseudo-clean. (i.e.-throw everything in an organized heap in my closet and/or under my bed, depending on the extent of my slobbery). Now, although cleaning is not one of my favorite things to do, it is an attractive alternative to homework. My desire to clean is directly proportional to the amount of homework I should be doing when the urge to clean strikes. It’s amazing what I’ll do when I have a calc assignment due the next day.

I have no concept of ‘keeping a room clean’. My system allows the room to descend to maximum mess and then cleaning it all up. With the zero maintenance I perform, the room will soon reach a new low. A few weeks ago, my room hit this stage. I’m a pretty tolerant person, but the level my room sank to was unbearable even to me. The hair on our floor could have been made into a toupee that would have been the envy of the entire Hair Club for men. Dust piled in plush layers under the beds. Dirty dishes piled like abstract art filled our sink. Random possessions were scattered everywhere. And my roommate and I had homework looming in our assignment notebooks. It was time to clean.

We started on the dishes first, not realizing that there is such a thing as ‘too much dish soap’. It was like that episode of every sitcom where someone puts too much soap in the washing machine. Or maybe that was just The Brady Bunch. Our sink isn’t very big and apparently bubbles are repelled by the drain. Our dishes ended up very clean, and one of the shower stalls ended up full of soapsuds we had transported there in a pitcher.

Next we needed to shave our carpet, but we settled for one of those dustbuster on a stick things that we borrowed from our neighbors. It did pick up the hair and even gave us some more airborne dirt when we tried to empty it, thanks to the spring-loaded bag. We found enough dust to make a sweater out of, if you’re into weird stuff like that. We aren’t. It went in the trash.

We moved furniture. We organized. We even cleaned that gross place under the sink that most people try to hide with a garbage can. Three hours later, our room was clean. We admired our handiwork, then went into another quad to hang out so as not to disturb our newly created utopia of cleanliness.

Sadly, this was three weeks ago. Eventually we had to come back from the other quad and actually live in our room. The room is once again returning to the depths of messiness. I’m not worried. Finals week is coming up, and I feel the urge to clean coming over me just thinking about it.