The Pleasures of Planning

Why do I get so much pleasure out of making plans?

At a party, I took a personality quiz in front of all my friends. It told me, curiously enough, that people of my personality type like to make plans even more than they like carrying them out. Everyone who was watching told me, "That sounds just like you!"

Last night, I made a plan that made me happy. My plan was to set my alarm for 8 in the morning. My plan was quite simple. I was going to wake up early to go talk to my professor about my summer plans at 9:15 in his office. I woke up, watched an episode of Ugly Betty on my computer, took a quick shower, and went to my professor's office.

This professor is basically my favorite of any. He teaches a course on Andean archaeology, and even though I'm not particularly good at the subject, I really, really like going to the classes. He's one of those professors who tells really awesome stories; in fact, I feel like the main reason why I like his class is because it's worth it to attend just to get the anecdotes. Usually, his best stories are more about archaeology than they are about ancient cultures, so we hear about how digs go wrong or how the Peruvian government messes stuff up to the detriment of science. These are the kinds of stories that make me think I would like to be an archaeologist, even though I don't think I'd be much good at it.

Anyway, I show up in his office, and of course he tells me a few good stories before we get down to business. First is the story about the super-gay lawyer/poet/archaeologist who owns the world's largest collection of Peruvian masks, the world's largest collection of some kind of vessel (I forget which), and an awfully impressive collection of dresses and costumes. "God," my professor said, "he just loves those costumes." Then there was an anecdote about the guy who was looking for a really old civilization, but was thwarted by his misinterpretation of some projectile points left by construction workers. And there was also a particularly artful story about Pablo Neruda's house in Chile, where he kept a life's collection of knickknacks collected from around the world. Neruda's house is filled with pieces of glass, sailors' wheels, and anchors, and mermaid's hair.

Then we made plans. I'm going to Perú! I got the money for the trip, and I'm going to spend my trip looking at Peruvian art and trying to contextualize some twentieth century literature written with a significant pre-Hispanic element. I basically retrofitted my old project to fit this new country. I'm not sure how well it'll fit, but I'm excited to make it work.

I leave for Perú on the tenth of June and come back to San Antonio on the twenty-first of July. Then, afterward, Emily and I will go on a roadtrip of some sort afterwards.

Making plans. Ecstasy. So much better than watching them fall apart.

But that's not to say that there isn't something to be said for the spontaneous. Today, I had to say some difficult goodbyes, but afterwards, I hung out with my BFs for a while. We ate lunch with the dean of the latino cultural house, and then afterwards, Alejandro sewed Kirsty a dress while she packed, and we listened to music and goofed around a bit. I got called an eeyore. And I helped Kirsty move her boxes to storage.

Silliman storage is SO MUCH BETTER than TD's. Look, I hate to say it, but if you saw there's you'd agree. They have uniform boxes, and they stack them neatly in rows on shelves where they're easy to access. Come on, TD - get with it.

Anyway, after I helped Kirsty move her stuff, I played the song "I love you always forever" on youtube as I said my goodbyes. It added a delicious dramatic effect, and it made it sound really important when I said things like "keep in touch this summer." I couldn't resist all that drama - I just couldn't!

And in fact, when you decide to say your goodbyes, you should play some highly dramatic music in the background, too. Plan on it, even if it's silly. The planning part will only make it that much better.