Benjamin Franklin <3s Internet Porn

Amazing how I set out to do one thing, and then wind up with my original goal sitting on the far left of my task bar, next to other, much more interesting windows. Do I need to be writing my 'motivational statement' for my Americorps application? Why yes, I do. Am I, once again, easily distracted by EVERYTHING ELSE on the internet? Double yes. I wonder what Benjamin Franklin or T.S. Eliot or Albert Einsteain would have thought if someone had told them that the internet would exist in the future.

See, not only am I distracted by the actual internet - I am distracted by what various historical figures would have thought about the internet. You KNOW that Franklin would have been all about internet porn.

I'm listening to some classical music via Pandora (another mind-blowing corner of the web!) and it makes me feel like I'm doing things in montage in a Jane Austen inspired movie. You know, I'm learning how to make a filigree basket or play the pianoforte so as to impress that dashing fellow (who is probably my second cousin or some other not very distant relation) who moved in to the little cottage on my rolling English property.

I took a Jane Austen course in college. We read every work of Jane Austen's, including the stuff she wrote when she was a tween. I used the word 'read' loosely, as I only really finished one of the assigned novels and survived by taking really good notes ln lecture. Our professor was sort of a kook, in a great, entertaining way. Well, I suppose she was just an enthusiast. A noted scholar, too - I think she wrote the introduction for one of the editions we read in the class. Anyways, she tried her best to bring the texts we studied to life for us by having us doing little activities in class and learned about the social context in which these novels were produced. She had us all (and it was a huge lecture) participate in English country dancing. I will never forget the supreme awkwardness of having to trot around a large room holding hands with my English 313 professor.

So this is my life here in Portland. I stay up late, Charlie (our wonderful catahoula leopard dog/pit bull mix) sometimes snuggles with me in bed, I avoid the very things I tell myself that I must accomplish, and I think about English country dancing.

More studying tomorrow. I'm quite over the GRE, I assure you. At this point I just want to get it over with so that I can evict it from the large cubby it has taken up residence in within my brain. I have better, more interesting things that can occupy that space! Things that involve less math and less inanity!

Ok. I will barrel through this motivational statement, which is supposed to explain what influential life experience of mine sparked my interest in community service. What if I just used up all of my interesting life experience with that bit about English country dancing? (joke.)