BitterSweetLife

When I started seminary about four years ago, I did not have to swing carrots in front of my face in order to get essays written. If memory serves (It might not, it's become slightly unreliable lately. Example: Ask me, quick! for my earliest childhood memory: Umm, KU over Portland State by 24!) the essays just happened.

I read my books and eagerly scanned my syllabi, then seated myself at the computer humming in contentment while my papers typed themselves. The next morning I would swing by the desk on my way out the door, grab my warm, white essay--newly printed and collated by my cooperative printer--and turn it in for an A grade before running outside to gambol on the green grass in the fresh, transparent air under the yellow sun. There has been far too little gamboling lately. And far too many dry, lobotomizing essays.

They've stopped writing themselves. The process is no longer magical, unless you consider coffee beans to have magical properties, which I do. But I feel palpable resistance when I try and write. Like a force stronger than coffee has pitted itself against me. I feel as if Satan has surrounded my computer with minor demons who are whispering, You shall not write this essay. No. NO, STOP! NCAABASKETBALL NCAABASKETBALL NCAABASKETBALL... (At this point they hiss a sigh of relief, then go and take a prolonged lunch break).

This week is my de facto Spring Break, and I have three main goals--other than my usual ones of sleeping, drinking a lot of coffee, making a couple dollars, spending more than five minutes alone with Lindsay, and trying to break a rim at the community center. These goals are:

1. Do our taxes.
2. Write a couple essays for a class.
3. Relaunch this blog (more on this).

One guess which of these goals inspires fear, dread, and mind-numbing paralysis? And I don't even like math.

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