Week Twenty Three: "I'm too intelligent to enjoy life"

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

SETTING—An empty stage.

CHARACTERS—CHARACTERS 1 and 2.

AT RISE—They are standing on the empty stage, awkwardly.

CHARACTER 1: Sooo.

CHARACTER 2: Yeah.

Long beat.

CHARACTER 1: Maybe, like, we just start talking.

CHARACTER 2: Could be, yeah.

CHARACTER 1: What’s your name?

CHARACTER 2: I don’t appear to have one. You?

CHARACTER 1: Same.

Long beat.

CHARACTER 2: What do we know about each other?

CHARACTER 1: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.

CHARACTER 2: I can’t think of anyone I’ve seen before.

CHARACTER 1: Do we know anything about ourselves?

CHARACTER 2: I think maybe I don’t like you very much.

CHARACTER 1: Great! That’s a really good start. Conflict.

CHARACTER 2: I guess so. And I’m either male or female. Humanoid, it would seem. What about you?

CHARACTER 1: I think I’m sad.

CHARACTER 2: But you were just so excited.

CHARACTER 1: Well. Maybe I’m volatile.

CHARACTER 2: You are so volatile. I hate that.

CHARACTER 1: That’s all I can think of.

CHARACTER 2: I think I’m smarter than you.

CHARACTER 1: You might be. You probably are. Doesn’t that make you sad?

CHARACTER 2: It does make me sad. Now I’m sad. This is just like you.

CHARACTER 1: Maybe ignorance is bliss. Now that you know things...

CHARACTER 2: Yeah. I guess I’m too intelligent to enjoy life.

CHARACTER 1 stares at CHARACTER 2 in utter disbelief, then smacks him/her in the face. CHARACTER 1 walks offstage.

CHARACTER 1 (over shoulder): Asshole. 

END OF PLAY

Week Twenty Two: "I want to like this class, I really do..."

THE DAILY PLANNER

He wanted to like this class; he really did. He was certainly paying enough for it. Or, more accurately, Sallie Mae was paying enough for it, and for the next 30+ years he would be paying more than enough for it.

So he should focus. He knew that. But there was the reading he hadn't done last night, and the reading he'd only glanced at the night before, and now nothing being discussed made any sense to him. So he granted himself the same bargain he always did: He would figure all of this out later.

Later, there would be time (and motivation!) to catch up on all the missed readings. Later, he would make a list—a long one—and cross things out one by one. Later, he would become a better student. The best student.

Of course, later never came. Instead, he found himself trapped in an endless cycle of Now—each one more discouraging than the last for the growing pile of good intentions he hadn't yet sorted out. It was just too overwhelming. There was just no way to do it all before the end of the semester, and besides which, it was all so late that the very best he could hope for now was a solid C minus. 

This is how he didn't fail out of college: Two weeks from the end of each semester—fueled by panic, deperation, and not a little caffeine—he made a sprawling list of everything he had to do. He named the days he had left and crammed his overdue assignments into them. He did as many as he felt he could and crossed them off as he went. 

That's it. Once he had to do them, he mostly found that they weren't so bad. Some he even enjoyed so much he wished he had more time with them. All of his work was good. None of it received the full grade it might have if he had just done the work when it was actually due.

And so he resolved, once and for all, that he would be a better student.

He would be the best student.

Later.