Flu, Blah

So, I’m sick. As much as I feel like crap at the moment, I also feel kind of relaxed. Sure, I probably feel this way because my entire body is so busy fighting off disease that it can’t process my five senses. This leaves my poor brain to sift through a mixed set of neural messages, which ultimately results in mass cranial confusion and then euphoria -  in the wake of impending death.

Or maybe it's simply that the flu just drained me of all energy... and good ways to describe the flu, apparently.

There are a few other good things about being sick: the long hours under the covers, the chicken noodle soup breaks, and the constant calls from my parents and girlfriend that break me from my naps in order to remind me to take medication - medicine that I have already taken just an hour prior to their call. The last one may seem annoying and/or tedious, and they are. But they are also reminders that I'm not completely alone, even though my illness forces me inside and away from others.

Bah, how sentimental. Must be the flu that's talking.

I have a lot to say about things, apparently.

It's the start of a new year, and around this time I make it a point to do something I haven't gotten around to in 12 months, which is to organize. As mundane and boring as that seems, I actually look forward to the work. One of the tasks that I want to do is to organize my e-mail. This is the chance to make filters and labels to reduce clutter in my inbox. I can even color some of the more important messages. The end goal is to make my inbox look like something akin to a color swatch. Once that happens, I can spot e-mails in a manner that is as accurate as it is pretty.

Still, it requires a lot of work, and I plan on spending about an hour a day to get this done. But, believe it or not, I'm used to this level of drudgery - not just from doing several iterations of the same algebra problem, but from the video games I enjoy. MMOs are a good example of the latter. In games like these you, as the all powerful, world saving adventurer, are sometimes tasked to collect 10 digital hides from 10 digital boars, then run them back to a digital tanner in a digital town for 10 digital gold. To be successful in such a game, you have to repeat quests like these ad naseum. How heroic! Still, the game is good at selling tasks like this as "fun." You are not only compelled to do them, but are convinced that there is a sense of accomplishment in their completion.

Sure, collecting hides is menial work, far less appealing than slaying a centaur turtle (a Turtaur?), and absolutely results in no benefit to life outside the game as a whole, but a player is put in the mindset that work itself is a game. Once that mindset is established, a person could will him or herself to do anything. It's a common trick that overachievers use to get through the bonus homework that their parents force upon them. The trick is to figure out how to apply that to the real world, which is quite the task, isn't it?

But I digress.

This post started out with color coding e-mails, huh? Damn. All I wanted to do was talk about how lame my life is and I end up writing mini op-ed piece.