Distractions, the indirect cause of all of my problems

In my month and a half in college, I have learned something about myself.  Not only am i head over heels in love with late night/early morning [B]skis, but I am about as attentive and focused as a deaf man at a classical string quartet performance (or a hummingbird in a candy shop) (or a college student at an 8:00 chemistry class) (or a dead beaver).  (I have a hard time picking one metaphor and sticking with it.) (I find that sometimes I get caught on tangents and confuse myself, so sometimes it's just easier to start a new paragraph.)

I have had ADD since I was little, but I've only recently become aware of how bad it can get.  Of course you can focus easily when you're really interested in something, so the key for me is to be able to pretend to myself that something is interesting, which comes in handy (such a weirdly used word) when studying Economics.  If I'm not focused, then anything and everything around me is a distraction.  Of course, boring distractions lead to being distracted by something else, and then I go on a wild path of random thoughts until I realize where I am again.  Fun distractions, however, can lead me to be very attentive, in a misguided way.

Just to share my unproductivityness with you, I thought I'd tell you a bit about some of the biggest online and offline distractions for me.  I hope they suck up your time as quickly and unstoppably as they have mine. This might seem abrupt, but I realize I've taken way too much time already to write this post, for a variety of reasons/distractions.

• Facebook (obviously)   It's far too easy to get sucked into chatting with a random high school acquaintance, catching up on messages and notifications, brainstorming witty status updates, or just scrolling through your news feed for opportunities to express your opinion and remind people you exist.
• The Onion News  (I think I've mentioned this one before..)  I'll occasionally glance at it to see the new front page articles, and before I know it I'm stuck leafing through page after page of random and hilarious news briefs (also a hilarious term)
• Random philosophical or religious conversations in the study lounge   (it is what it is)
• Pandora Radio/music    I get no work done while listening to music.  none.  
• Funny or Die        It's kind of like YouTube, but it's regulated to keep it only funny stuff, and quality controlled to make it easier to find *really* funny stuff.
• Hulu     I love TV,  but I never seem to watch it now that I'm here in college.  Whenever I happen to have a half hour or two free, I can always use it to catch up on an awesome TV show like House, or How I Met Your Mother.
• Wikipedia    It may seem odd, but I find few things more fun than looking up some random band or movie, and then following the links from there, picking up interesting factoids.  This is also where I learn the names of the members of bands I like so that I can be a legitimate fan  (I'm always afraid that I'll go to a concert and something awesome will happen like meeting the band but then I'll be expected to know their names and I won't and I'll look like a loser who doesn't know what he's talking about and only goes to "these kinds of concerts" to look cool and probably doesn't even know any of the songs or even really enjoy or appreciate this kind of music anyway but I do! I do! I swear I love this music I just never happened to learn the names of the band members and I don't see why that should mean I'm not as big of a fan as the next person that's like saying you're probably just acting like you enjoy a movie just because you don't know who produced it) (deeeeeeep breaths... calm down michael)
• Foooooooood
• sleepiness
• Amazon.com       (I like to troll for free stuff, simple enough)
• Youtube     My YouTube expeditions are much like going through the Pit in the middle of the day right after you've had a large cup of coffee and a ridiculous amount of sugar.  There's lots of fast movement between lots of different interesting things.  You keep seeing familiar things or people that you need to interact with.  And you rarely stay for the whole conversation before you're distracted and pulled off somewhere else.  You often pretend to be interested in something because someone you know is at the booth, or they have really good candy.   I feel as if this metaphor is like a pair of shoelaces that I tied wrong: it's a little tangled and confusing, and if I try to move any farther with it I'll probably fall over and hit my head.

Well that's it for this week, good luck getting any actual work done!



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