The Final $2
I knew I would be out until late today (I'm still in the library, in fact), so that meant a break from lentil cooking, which is something of a relief.
It's kind of difficult to eat pack two meals for the day when you have no infrastructure for it. I have two little "leftover" containers, but they're full of the chili powder I bought that came in a bag.
I wound up emptying the only plastic bag I had, which was holding postcards and stamps, and using it to hold two pitas that I butter-toasted this morning, along with five dates and my peanut butter jar. Catholic fasting usually involves two light meals and a main one, but for convenience's sake I just cut the main one, or at least, reduced to a piece of pita.
I was planning a massive study assault this afternoon, which I know can tax my staying-awake abilities even on a good day, so I spent my last $2 on a coffee with half-and-half around 12:30pm on the way to the 5th Ave library. It worked perfectly. I've been plunking away all day with barely so much as a yawn.
Doing a lot of deep reading for long periods of time is psychosomatically difficult for me to deal with anyway, all mitochondria aside, so today I had ChatGPT program me a Reading Timer. I knew I had to deep read from page 30 to page 92 of Romeo and Juliet before 4pm (it was a little before 2pm). So the timer I made has me enter a starting page, an ending page, and an ending time, and then it provides page countdowns based on dividing up the remaining time by as many pages as are left. Then it's very easy not to fall behind by spending five minutes on various pages when I only have 2 and change to spare. It was so helpful! Reading against a timer is a great psychological antidote to drowsiness while reading. And it turns an interminable task -- finish more than half of a Shakespeare play -- into a task with a definite end -- 4pm! I'll see if I can find a way to post it in case anyone finds it helpful. I do best when I run my life like a Japanese train. Timing my reading to the second really helps with that. Now I just need little men with white gloves to shove knowledge into my brain and the Japanesetrainification of my academic life will be complete.