weekend

Dictionary.com's 3rd definition of weekend is "any two-day period taken or given regularly as a weekly rest period from one's work." However, I usually use the term like this, "I can't wait to catch up on my reading and papers on the weekend" which means that I'm not actually resting during that two-day period.

In fact, the only time I actually devote to not doing reading/writing/grading or other schoolwork is late Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings after I spend about 5-8 hours during each of those days on school work. During that time (daytime Saturdays and Sundays) K usually manages to do a 2-3 hour ride on his bike, have a long shower, take a nap, buy groceries, clean his house, and do chores. When he is done doing all that, I'm usually still sitting in the same chair in front of my laptop pulling out my hair and cussing.

I'm typically too fried to use my brain after 7pm on weekends but sometimes I have to do that too. Weeknights look like this: Get home from school at 8pm, make dinner, eat dinner, clean up, do homework (and simultaneously do laundry) until bedtime at midnight.

I think that if you actually count the number of hours that Ph.D. students spend at school or on schoolwork per week, it would easily rival the hours spent at work by software programmers and i-bankers...but they make a tonne of money and we're broke. So I ask myself once again. Why the fuck am I doing this?

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Having said all that I do have to share the non-school related stuff I got to do this weekend which was unusually busy with non-school related shit. Friday night had take-out sushi for dinner, returned some stuff downtown, and watched Flannel Pajamas. The movie was kind of plotless. It was like being a fly on the wall watching a relationship begin and end over a 4 year period of time. It was touching and realistic but sort of boring. Saturday, homework day as usual except for a 2 hour break where I tagged along to a caucus to see American politics at work. I was shocked by how antiquated, confusing and disorganized this whole caucus system is. Later that night, dinner at K's friend's house where I got to play with two awesomely fun dogs. Sunday was a break from homework but it was a long busy day consisting of a course on how to use my digital SLR camera which ran from 8am to 5pm followed by a 3.5 hour dinner show at Teatro Zinzanni (K's Christmas gift for me). Show was a pretty awesome combination of musical theater, comedy, and circus acrobatics and a delicious 5-course meal.