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The power of procrastination

Wednesday, 12 September, 2007

I am nearly there with the Faith Guidebook for Life (and it has to be finished on Friday because we fly out on Sunday). Monday I only got half a chapter of it done. In my defence, I was also doing the first round of “cuts and fills” (that's what Erin says it's called!) but there wasn't much cutting and filling to do because it all fitted; I just needed to make sure that paragraphs, bullet points and italics had made it through. But when Emma came back, I was relieved to hand the whole thing over to her. I also spent a bit of time chasing commissions. So really half a chapter isn't half bad.

Still, my head was exploding at 4:30 so, rather than leave at 5 as planned (to go meet Bec at what used to be Esme's), I left at 4:30, parked near Scientia, moseyed down to the UNSW Bookshop (which is quite a decent bookshop if you're ever in its vicinity!) and treated myself to The Little Red Writing Book (c'mon! It's a good investment!) Then I moseyed up the Basser Steps to meet Bec. I spotted George up near what used to be Esme's with some people who looked like students and—oh joy!—Jorge Cham himself! George invited me to come join them but I said I was waiting for Bec. Just then I got a text message from Bec saying that she had to bail, so I accepted George's invitation and she introduced me to Jorge (which is actually pronounced “Hor-hay”!) George is much better at the social thing than I am—she told Jorge how I was writing a comic (while I stammered, rather embarassed, that I didn't draw), and Jorge asked me who I liked to read—“Oh, Sandman, Craig Thompson ... uh, the Bolt City guy ... Kazu ...” “Kibuishi,” he finished for me. “He's a friend of mine.” (Ooh! Jorge Cham is friends with Kazu Kibuishi!!!) I told Jorge what a big fan I was (he probably thought it was so weird that someone who's not a grad student—who isn't a student at all—should love his work). I told him I especially love his “Tales from the Road” (e.g. this one). He said, “Have you read Carnet ...?” “de Voyage!” I finished for him. “Yes! I love it!” “That was the inspiration for those,” he said. (Ooh! Jorge reads Craig Thompson too!!!)

Jorge then totally made my day and made my geeky joy complete by signing my journal:

And he drew Cecilia for me! *Faints with happiness!*

The student association people took Jorge and his wife [Ed: that should be “partner”] on a campus tour while I accompanied George back to her office and helped her get ready. We brought all the stuff up to CLB and set up, and then all the people arrived by the hundreds. CLB 7 apparently seats 500 (and it looks so much nicer now than when I used to sit in it for CBS!) In the end, it was almost completely packed. Unfortunately there was no VGA cable to connect the laptop to the super funky equipment so George sent me on a mission. It was a rather fruitless mission—I thought I brought back the right cable but it turns out I'm not geeky enough to spot a VGA cable. Fortunately one of the engineering nerds in the crowd just happened to have one in his bag so we were in business. George gave Jorge a spiffing introduction and he was away with his presentation on “The Power of Procrastination”: (NB: This picture has been posted with George's permission.)

(I got to sit next to her in the front row with lots of other SPUBS [Staff and Postgraduate University Bible Study] people [and Pete who were just behind me!])

I don't think I've laughed so much since Ben sang his “You Called Me Lady” song at the Moore College revue in 2005! (Jorge said, “Most people confuse procrastination with laziness. But they're not the same thing. Laziness is when you don't want to do anything. Procrastination is when you don't want to do it now.”)

But here a couple of interesting facts to note:

• T.M. Amabile says that people are less creative under pressure (This might be the reference: Collins, M.A. and T.M. Amabile, 1999. “Motivation and creativity”, in R.J. Sternberg (ed.), Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 297-312). This makes me wonder how I can reduce the pressure in my job (and in my life!) so that I can be more creative;
• According to a survey, 10% of grad students have seriously considered suicide. 1 in 200 have actually attempted it.

I couldn't help thinking as I listened that doing a PhD has much in common with doing MTS: your time is unstructured, the tasks are ever-expanding, and those who do it are over-achievers who have a great fear of failure.

When the lecture was over, most of the room dissipated to chase the free food. There were limited copies of all three of Jorge's books but I needed to get home and thought perhaps one day I'd order them off Amazon. So I said thank you and goodbye to George and drove home.

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