Life in the Slow Lane

(N.B. This post is about boredom. For those of you in the middle of exams, I understand I won't get much sympathy. But at least reading it will help you kill valuable minutes that would've otherwise been wasted studying.)

It happened at around 2:35 this afternoon. I had completed every single errand that was on my "To Do" list. Some of these items had loitered for months, like vague promises that I knew I'd never keep. Well, now I've kept them. And in the mean time, I'd finished season three of 24. That's 18 hours of television in a four day period. Between that and the three blog posts I put up yesterday, I'm starting to realize that I need a new hobby.

In any case, the last item on the list was to take care of the recycling pile that'd built up at the cottage for the past month or so. I elected to walk the stretch of road from here to the mailboxes, and I'm glad I did. The snow we've had over the past few days has left an inch of snow on every branch along the cottage road. Combine that with the hushed silence of the country and the faint smell of wood smoke, and you'll get an errand that turns into an hour-long stroll.

It's times like this that I'm glad I elected to stay out at the cottage this year, despite the fact that it's left me a little isolated at times. There's just not many people close to my age around here. But having a crash pad in town and friends who can make it out to the cottage for weekends has done a lot to make a year in the country a reasonable idea, and to keep me from turning into a beard-growing, canned-goods-stockpiling survivalist.

In another three and a half months, I'm officially a Man of Leisure once again. There are going to be some big choices that need to be made in terms of my future. I feel I'm a little wiser than the 17 year old who chose Cognitive Science as his major back in high school, but this "time to decide your future" thing has still snuck up on me.

As much as I think the plan I set up earlier is sound, there are still a lot of options to weigh. Long walks in the woods are good for that. Hopefully by the time that I'm a Man of Leisure - that really does sound so much better than Unemployed - I've either grown accustomed to my relaxed schedule, found a new job in the area, or taken up a new hobby.

Here's hoping. The next season of 24 won't be released on DVD for another 361 days.