Saturday, September 24, 2016

Concerning Fall

     Yesterday was a...day.

     So was the day before that.

     Millions of people experienced that day in different ways, sometimes crossing paths with others in the infinte spiderweb of socialization.

     However, that day, the day before yesterday was a Thursday, which is somewhat more comforting than the existential crisis inspired by the previous sentence.

     Ordinarily this information, this Thursdayness would slip by largely unnoticed, except perhaps by those who draw hope from the day's nearness to the weekend. However, the Thursday in particular rises from the mediocre deeps in that it was The First Day of Fall. Or Autumn, I suppose; contrary to popular belief, some Americans do in fact refer to the season by the latter name, instead of the more common (and more literal) first.

     Speaking of fall (and of taking things literally, I suppose), do you know how hard it was to resist beginning with a Sherlock GIF? Ah, the perks of attempting to stay family-friendly.... Surely my characters are rising up to denounce my hypocrisy of not taking the opportunity to make a violent pun. I sense pitchforks in my immediate future. Sometimes I'm afraid the figments of my own imagination, but I doubt a incorporeal being could skewer me with aforementioned farming implement. Besides, if something is fictional it can't exactly weep over the death of Sherlock Holmes. My characters have enough problems of their own to cry about, like the death of [censored for spoilers]. But I guess sometimes they do wish to tell their dead friends....

Image found on Tumblr. Sherlock is BBC property; I, an American,
claim none of it

     Great, now half the readership is hopelessly confused and the other half is crying on the floor. Spectacular job, Elizabeth.




     Let's switch from falls of the Reichenbach nature to the falls of the pumpkin spice latte nature. Which reminds me... why is that particular sort of coffee both venerated and ridiculed above all other ridiculously overpriced beverages? Sure, I would probably fight someone over pumpkin pie, but over a $5 drink saturated with 1,000,000 kilograms of sugar... I'm confused.

Disclaimer: the author has never tried a pumpkin spice latte, despite the fact that she has a Starbucks less than 5 minutes from her house. She realizes she may have offended the entirety of the internet and fears...nothing. And yes, she used the metric system even though she's a hopelessly pale American. Fight her.

    I think I'm having an existential crisis about coffee now. Perhaps later I'll pen a pseudo-philosophical rant about the cliches tied into Starbucks.

     For now, though, I'll add it to the list of things I intend to do but probably will forget about five minutes later. Whatever doesn't guilt-trip you into doing it gets put off until you forget about it. But at least this time I'm procrastinating by doing something somewhat useful, which is... probably good? Surprisingly, though, I'm not procrastinating writing an essay; actually, I've been assigned no essay this semester (yet at least). So, I decided to fill that gap in my schedule by sharing tips on how to do something I haven't properly done in... years?

     After sitting down at one's computer (an essential first step, though I shan't judge you if you choose to exercise your Right to American Freedom and Stand Tall and Proud. Or Short and Proud, depending on the circumstances), there are many ways to go about writing a paper, which I have organized into a List. I'm most certainly being productive if I'm making lists.

1. Bang one's head against the keyboard repeatedly. Let spellcheck lend some feeble sense of order to the garbled mess. Format it properly. Turn the atrocity in. Cry.

2. Copy and paste the whole thing from Wikipedia. Pray the professor hasn't heard of said website and takes you at your word. Or Word. Microsoft Word. If you dislike puns or hate Microsoft even more than you hate actually writing essays, you've probably murdered me by now.

3. Write it all at 4 a.m. the night before it's due, fueled by coffee, Redbull, and deep-seated hatred for the American education system. Is passing the class really worth it?

4. Behave like the responsible human being everyone believes you to be and start the assignment as soon as you receive it. Budget your time well. End up actually sleeping instead of crying the night away.

     Why is it that nobody, nobody chooses the last option? Are we lazy? Are we perfectionists? Are we hopeless procrastinators doomed to flunk out of college and spend our lives flipping "burgers" and protesting minimum wage laws with hopelessly misspelled signs?

     As I lack a satisfactory answer, I shall blame everything on Habits. They say it takes a month to form a habit; I wonder how many essays one could write in a month, given that Alexander Hamilton wrote...

     Wait, no; if I'm to reference the $10 founding father I must do it properly.

*deep breath*

HAMILTON. WROTE.

THE OTHER FIFTY ONE.

     I'm not remotely sorry. However, if you're here for Hamilton puns, I'm afraid you're just going to have to Wait for It.

*historical chortling*

     Besides essays and expensive coffee, fall has quite a variety of occurances to warrant the mass rejoicing over the death of summer--and, by extension, the death of mosquitoes. Warm drinks, sweaters, Halloween (a.k.a. Reformation Day, depending on which way you look at it--I wonder how hard it would be to carve the 95 Theses into a Jack-o-lantern), Thanksgiving, the Beginning of the Christmas Season, and...

     Nanowrimo.

     Time to decide which character(s) will proverbially get it.

     *devious cackling* *sudden realization and existential crisis about joking about destroying characters* *because characters carry shards of one's soul* *and to kill them off sometimes says something deep about you* *but it makes readers cry* *and sometimes makes a point* *and so we do it* *and now I need to stop before I rant for another paragraph, entirely in asterisks* *and so* *goodnight*

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