As I was packing up to leave seminar this evening, the professor asked "Have you always been so meticulous?" I was confused, until I realized he was looking at the stuff I was packing up. And it hit me, that I have been arrainging my stuff in the same way all semester in every class. My binder is open, two pens and a pencil arranged at the top of the binder. When I want to use the blue pen, I put the black pen in its spot. And my water bottle goes to the right.

I was surprised to discover that I'd been arrainging my stuff with such precision. I can only blame my Marine career. Aviation maintenance puts an premium on keeping track of one's tools, and flight equipment/parachute rigging takes that premium and ramps it up into obsession. When working on, say, a helmet, I'd always put my tools in the same places, so I could grab what I needed when I needed it, but also so I could tell at a glance that everything was there. Now I've transferred that habit to the tools of my new profession.

It was an interesting epiphany.

And I wish the paper I'd turned in today was better organized. The professor might rethink his judgment. It was not a very good paper at all. But this week is kind of a bad one for me, so I'm not as productive as I should be, and I wrote it very much at the last minute and without a decent thesis.

Posted by: Boviate at 12:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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