This is ridiculous

Day 26 of National Blog Posting Month... The end is in sight. I'm tenacious. If I commit to something, whether it's a committee, an event, or even a mindset, I follow through pretty well. Sometimes this works in my favor; other times, it makes me my own worst enemy.

In this case, it's just a month of posting stuff once per day. The quality may vary radically, and the frequency of posting has led me to post more pictures, but dagnabit, I'm completing what I set out to do. And when it's over? I'll probably go back to posting about 3 times per week. As far as bloggers go, I think that makes me pretty consistent.

There is, however, one thing I want to try. This idea is triggered in part by a couple posts at The Skewed View about wasting time away. I haven't his fortitude to pull the plug on my Facebook as I did with Myspace, but I do acknowledge that too much of my time gets frittered away on the Internet. Facebook is but one culprit; it shares the time suckage with checking multiple e-mail addresses, checking site stats and Google Reader, popping in at my old journal to see what the friends I made there are up to, goofing around on Youtube, spending time on Last.fm. Oh, there could be legitimate reasons for those things: perhaps there are e-mails from friends (most likely e-mails are specials from Borders, mailings from the coffee shop, catalog specials, and the like), no legit excuse on the site stats thing but egotism (an average 10 hits per day!), I rarely comment on people's journals anymore even if I skim them, no excuse for Youtube since it's usually just for music and typically ends up somehow on inane videos like talking cats, and in my defense I typically have Last.fm going in the background to grading or some such thing.

It all adds up to more time than I'd care to calculate. I wondered to myself if I could go a week without the computer (which, to be honest, is synonymous with "Internet," the real culprit), triggering a painful knee-jerk response. No can do, and what about my employee e-mail? I should keep up with that, at least.

How about two days, then, as a test of will? Two days of only using the computer for necessities. It seems so simple, and it is... in theory. Communism seems simple in theory, too, and look how well that's worked out. No, entire economies won't go to pot with my little experiment, but I anticipate the prospect with about as much glee as a peasant girding up to go stand for hours in the bread line. (Note to self: bad simile. Quit it with the melodrama, you spoiled bourgeois baby.)

This will be after November, though--wouldn't want to drop the ball on NaBloPoMo with the end so close in sight. That would mean the first of December to start my experiment, a Saturday, running through Sunday. Would that mean actually going out and doing something that involves interacting with human beings? Doing my grading in a more efficient manner? Not being online at 2 and 3 a.m.? Taking that time to read or do something productive? Radical concepts.

I'd need to establish rules ahead of time: only work e-mail, no exceptions. No Internet otherwise. Shoot, no computer, period. I'll shut it down. Music? Charge the iPod in advance. Yeesh... I haven't synced any new music onto it since Spring semester... it's an odd mixture of Bayside, Muse, 30 Seconds to Mars, Bullet For My Valentine, Rise Against, Emery, and Within Temptation (I think I'll leave it be for now, as I never installed iTunes on this computer). If I want to play Solitaire, I can pull out a deck of cards. Need to write something? I can use pen and paper.

I can't think of anything else. I think I'm gonna do it even though my hands feel a bit clammy at the prospect. See that? I'm committing to it.