A girl sits at a desk, sneezes, and looks around. “Where has the last hour gone? Have I really been checking email, writing email and going though various paperwork for that long?” she asks herself? The clock doesn’t lie, and neither does her empty tea cup. Sighing, she gets up to go start more water in the cheap coffee maker that serves as her quickie version of a tea kettle. It’s fast and easy, but it doesn’t whistle when it’s done. Disappointing, that. So is drinking tea out of a cup that isn’t the normal ‘tea mug’. That’s what happens when one leaves one’s mug in an inaccessible location. Resourcefulness, that’s the ticket. Back at the computer, the girl looks over those things in front of her. A stack of CD’s recently ripped to her computer for her listening pleasure sits in one corner while a pile of scrap paper for taking notes on, including one full of notes from this afternoon’s environmental chemistry exam, has exploded over the writing surfaces. “It was good of me to leave them on the desk this morning, where they’d really help me study.” She thinks sarcastically at herself. “Not that they would have done any good. They were wrong material all together. Good thing most people in the class thought the same thing. Not that the professor curves or anything, but maybe she’ll realize it wasn’t the best of tests and take that into consideration while assigning final grades.”

She sighs again. The stapler, stack of post-it notes, random pens, and various receipts taking up the back of the desk don’t respond. The phone to her right remains silent as well. “There’s nothing for it, I guess. I’ll have to do my biostats homework. Though what’s the world coming to when you have nothing left to procrastinate with and have to do your homework?” The biostatistics texts, wisely, remain silent as well. The rest of the room beckons. A stack of papers in the corner practically screams for organization and the state of the dresser surface doesn’t even bear mentioning. A random pile of clothes on the bed needs to be sorted into the ‘laundry’, ‘clean’ and ‘wearable around the house’ categories, and then sent on to their appropriate destinations. The floor could use vacuuming and the surfaces dusting. All this she sees and dismisses with a quick glance around the room. She gets up again to see if the coffee maker has finished producing hot water for her third? cup of tea. Is it really three when it was one cup, half drank, reheated, sipped, forgotten, reheated with more water and another teabag for reconstitution, forgotten again, and reheated a last time before consumption? Who knows? All that is a travesty to the marvel that is hot tea with honey. Ah. The faithful little coffee maker has done its job and a green tea has been selected and left seeping in the kitchen. The biostats books are looking faintly miffed about their continued state of neglect. How can one student be so cruel? They were created for that single purpose, to educate and inform, and they sit dejected on the corner of the desk. They hold down the stack of scrap paper (should it be in the mind to wander), and gather dust.

Hoping to procrastinate just a little more before tackling her homework, the girl goes onto the internet to check the weather. Her favorite weather site states that tomorrow will be warmer than today was. Enough that the miniscule amount of snow that fell on Tuesday night will turn to slush, melt, puddle, churn with mud, and eventually just become a sloppy quagmire of filth. No surprise there. Fall has not yet given over completely to winter. The warm breezes vie with the icy wind and one is as likely to be hit in the nose with a snowflake as a raindrop. One dresses in layers, Alaska for the morning and Florida for the afternoon. Ok, maybe not Florida, but at least a balmy mid-to-lower Illinois. “Sheesh” The girl is now exasperated. She has plenty of good books to read, just on the shelf behind her. But her conscience states that she just finished a book and if she wants to start another, she must first at least review her biostats lesson online. She tells her conscience to get stuffed and leaves the computer yet again to go get her green tea, add honey, stir until ‘just right’ and then return to the computer.

Nothing seems right to her. She’s been doing various levels of procrastination – all useful things – for the last hour and a half, but she’s just too restless to sit down and begin work. That she is already sitting down, at the very same computer she will need to use for her homework, is irrelavant. No, it’s not so much the sitting on her back pockets that is important as the state of mental being required to begin such a dry topic as this set of biostatistics homework problems. If she didn’t want to do that, she reasons with herself, there is always the economics paper, the other biostats homework (rather un-doable until the first is completed, but it's really the thought that counts), or even more research for her Master’s project. There are many avenues open to her; she has but to choose one, set her feet upon the path, and begin. If it were that easy, noone would procrastinate, there would be no world hunger, war, or disease, and the question needed that results in an answer of 42 to the life, the world, and everything would have been determined. Another gargantuan sigh is the result of this current line of thinking, and the tea begins to be consumed; it’s a bit heavy on the honey side, but still good.

Finally, she makes up her mind. Biostats just isn’t worth doing at this juncture. The tea is hot, her mind is fairly aware and alert – though not in the mood for scholarly thought, and the bookshelf beckons. She gets up, walks over to the bookshelf to find a suitable title for her mood, and goes back to the futon, overstuffed pillows, and blanket that were her companions earlier in the evening. Sometimes, one just needs a night off.