Tuesday seems to have become the new Monday!

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

 Don Marquis

*

The two rules of procrastination: 

 1) Do it today. 

 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow.

 Author Unknown

*

I am not entirely sure when this shift occurred but I have noticed more and more of late that I have a tendency to discount Monday as a day of work! Now Ph.D needs to see a good 5 days work put in (out of the 7 that God has deigned we should have in a week) I would say but why have I discounted Mondays?
I don't LIKE Mondays. I have been at the beck and call of two teens all weekend, and believe me they are far more demanding as teens than as tots! Incessant chatter, mealtimes, loud music, friends calling, phone calls, tantrums, strops and needs for reassurance takes its toll on a woman. And all of that is just dealing with my partner! Don't get me started on the kids! I need my Mondays to regroup, plan and basically just be able to hear myself think.

However, there is a problem with this attitude! As Tuesdays have now become the new Mondays I now HATE Tuesdays! Can you see where this is going? Can you? Soon the entire week will be a series of procrastinated Mondays! As the quote says, 'Tomorrow will be today, tomorrow.' Clearly, I am not the first, and sure as hell won't be the last, to find this to be the case.

Every Sunday night I tell myself I am going to get up and get myself across to my office and put in a full day's work. But when that alarm clock rings and I hear the kids getting ready for school; the lure of a day of tranquillity and peace just envelops me and I can sense my body sinking deeper and deeper into the warmth of my duck down douvet. It's still dark outside as well, which adds to the illusion that the week hasn't started yet; is yet to begin. I tell myself I can read in bed, where it is comfortable and warm. And of course there is the ecological argument for not driving to work. I am saving on petrol ( good financial sense) and reducing my carbon footprint. I am a model of perfect humanity by staying put; a shining example!

Reality Check! 


This can't go on. I do work at home on a Monday, deluding myself that I am being particularly virtuous because actually this is my 'day off' and look - I am working! I even manage to feel a bit chuffed with myself, until I sink into the mattress  that night and realise that one fifth of the week has gone and I have to now cram 5 days into 4, which means I will most likely have to do some work at the weekends, which means I will need to take Monday off... and so on and so forth.

Then there is the guilt. I have the luxury of an office. Some students do not; there are not enough offices to go round. Yet here am I, lying in my bed, hot cup of tea in one hand and sheaf of papers in the other, revelling in luxury, whilst my office space languished unused and in darkness, as others sit huddled in the common study areas, breathing the fetid air of unwashed bodies and stale breath.

Ok. I admit that is a tad Dickensian, the common areas are light, bright, airy, and spacious rooms, with all modern technological facilities and are cleaned on a daily basis. Also the Ph.D community is not exactly the great unwashed - most of them being American means they are usually the great over-washed (Colgate smiles and manicured nails to boot!) but, well you get my drift! But nevertheless (who decided that those three words should be run together to make one word? Genius!) I still feel the penitent's flush of shame with each dunk of my Hobnob.

So Happy Monday, even though it is Tuesday, which now feels like a Monday, which means tomorrow has become Tuesday.... No one ever said an academic mind was a sensible or logical one did they!