Monday
Today was the day after the half-marathon. All the muscles in my legs were still burning in the morning. Luckily there was a nice drizzle outside and the air was cool, so walking to the tram stop was not as awful as it could have been (though it did take double the usual time).
As always the day begins in the ATLAS Control Room. My one responsibility was to take a GIANT new 64-bit computer down to the pit and replace our very last 32-bit machine. I couldn't even lift the damn thing since my legs were too wobbly. Instead I trekked around the campus for an hour collecting various necessary tools- a screwdriver, some zip ties, and the nuts and bolts to screw the computer into the rack. I limped from location to location to get these things (why were they so far apart?) making the task fill up an hour.
After that I tried to spend the next hour learning about databases, but failed. I am perpetually distracted at work. I will be going back to the USA at the end of the week, but this week, not only do the TRT responsibilities never end (stable beams again today after the marten incident) but I have two chapters due for the conference note I am working on for my analysis. It will get done- but I wish I did not save these things to be done at the last minute. I am also giving a presentation tomorrow at group meeting about the workshop I went to two weeks ago. I'll be writing the slides 5 hours before actually giving the presentation.
I'm tired of this just-in-time life. This addiction to the awful distracting bits of the Internet has to end. Admitting addiction is the first step. So I admit it- I am an animal and I can be trained to respond to obvious bids to my brain's pleasure center. Yes, I will click on your inflammatory, click-baity headline. Yes, I will procrastinate doing something mildly difficult by escaping to easy-to-consume, one-and-a-half-minute-or-less gifs and videos. Yes, I will constantly refresh the feed for updates. Yes, I will feel a rush of dopamine with every like I get on that post. Yes yes yes, I relent. I am flesh and chemicals and dumb cause-and-effect. Shock me and I'll raise my hand! But please, release me now from this cycle, and put me in another, better one.