So last week, I posted about an ostensible trend among people my age to use Facebook in lieu of email. This is pretty much blasphemy in my mind, as I am literally obsessed with my email. Even before I had a smart phone, I would check my email constantly.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across this question on AskMetafilter, by a poster who had a lot of trouble replying to emails, feeling crippling anxiety about getting everything perfect, every time. The comments suggest working through batches of email as quickly as possible to get it over with, or else getting used to sending very short emails and focusing on the task of clearing out your inbox. Despite my emailing habits I actually identified a lot with the sentiment expressed in the post, and I started wondering whether or not my complete OCD with respect to my inbox was simply a way of dealing with the kind of emailing anxiety described in the post.

Read on!

I’ve run out of pre-scheduled posts, and I’ve been working much longer hours (with more work…density?) than usual at work so I haven’t had time to write more, either. This is partially because I’m really sick and tired of Apple’s Antennae-Gate so I’ve been skipping my RSS feeds a lot. Seriously, I know the rest of the world is gleeful that Apple screwed up somehow, but I really don’t need to hear about it daily from thirty-seven different sources for three weeks straight.

Anyway, last Friday, as the end of the week was finally in sight and I was finishing up some work, this happened to my computer. (Let the record show that about a second before, there had been exactly five windows open, and I had literally not touched anything in the interim.)

Computers seem to die a lot around me lately. The sound card on my work computer completely gave out, and my laptop is behaving more and more erratically.

Oh well. We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming in about a week’s time, after these deadlines are over and done with.

So I’ve started something I’m calling “iPad Quest”. It goes like this:

I give myself points.
2 points for eating well and avoiding greasy campus food, -0.5 points if I didn’t.
1 point for going to the gym.
2 points if I updated my blog 3 times that week.
1 point if I drew two pieces of art that week.

At the end of the week, I tally up my points and transfer that amount in points from my main bank account into a savings account that I’m currently not using. That will be my iPad fund.

If I do everything right that week, that’s 24 points. That means I could buy an iPad within 25 weeks or so – by the end of the summer. If I don’t… well, it could take to Christmas and beyond.

Why? Because I need to eat better and exercise, and because I want an iPad. Why not do the natural (nerdy) thing and make a game out of both? Plus, hopefully if I’ve been doing this consistently for half a year (25 weeks), I’ll actually get in the habit of eating well and going to the gym and not messing with my health. (Actually, speaking of messing with my health: maybe I should add another achievement slot for sleeping more than 40 hours a week.)

I might make more achievements, but I also don’t want to make this thing too easy on myself. 25 weeks is a good time to have to wait.

You’re more welcome to join me for whatever you’re consumer-lusting for. Wish me luck.

“A popular Canadian creation myth has it that when the Fathers of Confederation came together, they decided to build a truly great country by borrowing the best of what their ancestors and neighbours had produced. The country they envisioned would combine French culture, British politics, and American technology. But the plan went wrong, and Canada was left instead with French politics, British technology, and American culture”

– Frank E. Manning

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Nothing groundbreakingly original this time, I just really love this quote. Happy New Year, everyone, and Happy New Decade. I’ll be updating more, really.

These were both taken with my camera phone, hence the less-than-stellar quality. One is from my window looking out onto the driveway, one is the street I live on at 7 AM this morning.

Read on!