The System

On the upper left hand corner of my desk is a pile of tasks to be completed in the near future. When I finish something, e.g. a linguistics reading, the linguistics notebook goes in my bag and the textbook goes on the shelf to my right. At the moment I have the following items on my desk:
-A paper on child logic to be read by 4:00 this afternoon for my meeting with Jill;
-My math folder, notebook, and textbook, to be used for studying for Friday's midterm;
-My Chinese book, containing 45 new vocabulary words to make flashcards for and learn by tomorrow;
-My linguistics notebook and selected readings, to be studied for Friday's OTHER midterm.
-Not represented: the two canvases that must be stretched and primed for tomorrow's painting class. Looks like another 7 hour day at Amherst tomorrow.


All of this work may turn out to be in vain because I very well might be going to prison. I am going to kill- or at least smack- the Horribly Annoying Girl in my math class, appropriately named Jillian. Jillian is a firstyear but, like all reasonably intelligent people, has already taken Calculus and already understands everything we do in Discrete Math long before we actually do it. She has not yet mastered the basic grade-school etiquite of not looking at others' quiz scores and not remarking loudly, "The homework last night was so easy- it took me like 20 minutes."
The other day as we were packing up she said to me, "Oh, functions! I guess this is the part of the course where it gets really hard for you, since you've never taken precalc."

As she should know, from looking at my papers, it's already quite hard enough for me, thank you.

I am so going to jail. Soon.