Procrastination Station

So, my senior research paper is due in three days. My program director originally met with us in September of last year to get us thinking about what we want to do & how to go about it. My original plan was to conduct research. I thought about doing a study at the VA to see how yoga affects PTSD symptoms. I thought I'd teach a class twice a week to veterans & teach meditation techniques, then measure their symptoms of anxiety, hypervigilance, and sleep disturbance to see if it was affected. I never actually did this. I also thought about doing a review of charts in our outpatient clinic to see how many residents routinely check cholesterol & fasting glucose levels on patients who take atypical antipsychotics. My hypothesis was that the majority of residents do not check labwork, though atypicals are known to cause high blood sugar & high cholesterol. I never did this either.

And now my paper is due in three days. And I have written NOTHING. So what am I doing? Deciding it's the perfect time to make my debut blog post. What the fuck???? At what point does procrastination cease to be quirky and charming, and start to be pathological and self-damaging? Maybe at this point? Maybe so.

Tonight I've talked to Anthony, talked to my sister for 45 minutes (after not talking to her in months), checked out the Met Ball pictures on gofugyourself.com (those ladies crack me up!), looked up the Senior Water Aerobics schedule at Saginaw Valley State University, taken a quiz to find out my dosha (vata), taken a quiz to find out my procrastination style ("ADD procrastinator"--duh), eaten a pint of Ben & Jerry's frozen yogurt (only 800 calories), checked my e-mail numerous times (nothin'), and taken half a caffeine pill. Half a caffeine pill & a pint of Ben & Jerry's was my secret weapon in med school. But it doesn't seem to be kicking in just yet. So here I am posting on this blog. Hooray for the Internet!

Maybe I was more productive in med school because I had a dial-up connection.

Must. Write. This. Paper.

The topic is actually of interest to me. I'm doing a literature review of treatments for nightmares associated with PTSD. PTSD is one of my main interests in psychiatry, and I'm going to be seeing lots of it in my future job at the VA. So this is actually going to be helpful to me in my career and shit. Right now I've got the articles laid out in neat piles on the floor. My goal for tonight is to write the section on therapy techniques, as well as the section on benzodiazepines. So I am going to go do it now. And I make this commitment to you, Brandon & SunShine, and whoever else reads this blog, that I will not check another website or engage in any other non-productive activity until I write those sections. And then I'll give you a quick update on what I've learned....