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New Stages of Procrastination

4/29/2018

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In my beloved partner, a highly articulate intellectual with a flair for putting things off in the most creative manner, I am able to observe and reflect on the nature of procrastination.

Recently hired as a First Officer by a local airline, my darling has been thrown into an intense period of necessary mental and logistical preparations. In the forefront is the need to review and familiarize herself with hundreds of pages of Standard Operation Procedures (or "SOPs", as these necessary but somewhat dry bits of information are referred to by people in the industry).

I knew we were in trouble when, ten days prior to the start of ground school, I observed my beloved voraciously reading not the SOPs, but rather, various online bulletin boards dealing with which airline is best to work for, how to study said SOPs and what supplementary resources on Amazon are helpful when starting a new ground school class. 

Tats is very effective, you see, at convincing herself and those around her that in order to study well, she must first take the time necessary to prepare for the preparation of preparing her notes for review. I was almost convinced myself the first few times I saw her engage in this sort of behaviour. 

Seven years of co-habitation with this creature has taught me to be a better bullshit detector.

Things culminated in a new level of crazy this weekend when -- in an attempt to escape her thick cloud of impending new job anxiety -- I retreated under a blanket on the couch, noise-canceling headphones applied to my head, and Mozart's clarinet concerto flowing melodiously into my ears.  Halfway through the first movement, I heard a sort of crunching sound emanating from somewhere outside the concerto.

So much for noise canceling!

I attempted to ignore the distraction and focus on the clarinet... alas, by the time we were a short way into the Adagio, I tore off my not-so-noise-canceling headphones to see what the infernal racket was coming from my beloved's desk nearby.

The answer unveiled a new stage of procrastination: Tats had printed out all three million pages of her new airline's SOPs on our ancient and slowly dying printer, supplementing the barely-legible pale ink with quite possibly the tiniest font size she could find ("cute, little SOPS are comforting", she explained when I raised my eyebrows quizzically), and was rhythmically cutting the pages into quarters to make little booklets to study in chunks.
Pilot cutting apart SOPs Picture
Apparently unperturbed that -- a week before ground school -- she was still physically manipulating the SOPs rather than committing them to memory, her greatest concern at this point was how she could effectively and attractively bind her mini SOP booklet.

​I decided to make some tea.  It seemed the only possible way forward.

Several hours later, those of you who fly commercially will be relieved to know that this airline's newest pilot is now an eighth of the way through her cute little SOP booklet, and is taking only periodic breaks to consult aviation forums regarding working conditions for the competitor, and is even looking up some actual aviation terms and definitions.

Blue skies ahead!
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    About Vera...

    Vera and her sons, Christmas 2010
    After writing for several teacher and multiple birth publications, including ETFO's Voice Magazine, Multiple Moments, and the Bulletwin, Vera turned her written attention to prolific blogging for some years, including BiB,  "Learn to Fly with Vera!"  and SMARTbansho .  Homeschooling 4 was her travel blog in Argentina.  She now spends more time on her Instagram (@schalgzeug_usw)  than her blog (pictures are worth a thousand words?!) Contact Vera by clicking the photo above.
    DISCLAIMER
    The views expressed on this blog are the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the perspectives of her family members or the position of her employer on the the issues she blogs about.  These posts are intended to share resources, document family life, and encourage critical thought on a variety of subjects.  They are not intended to cause harm to any individual or member of any group. By reading this blog and viewing this site, you agree to not hold Vera liable for any harm done by views expressed in this blog.
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Vera C. Teschow, OCT, M.Ed., MOT
Toronto, ON & St Peter's Harbour, PE
www.verateschow.ca 2021
Photos used under Creative Commons from Sean MacEntee, Studio Paars, Bengt Nyman, zeevveez, GoodNCrazy, CJS*64, Accretion Disc, CharlesLam, Courtney Dirks, CJS*64 "Man with a camera", Accretion Disc, Bobolink, Ian Muttoo, BioDivLibrary, Alaskan Dude, IsabelleAcatauassu, runran, Transformer18, jglsongs, Create For Animal Rights, david_shankbone, Paul J Coles, foilman, Newport Geographic, Photo Everywhere, kevin dooley, Claudio , Alex Guibord, Tscherno, f_mafra, Terry Madeley, musee de l'horlogerie, BobMacInnes, wwarby, jonathangarcia, amboo who?, chimothy27, Elin B, cliff1066™, Grzegorz Łobiński, Rennett Stowe, Farhill, Phil Manker, Guitarfool5931, airguy1988, dierk schaefer, Rob Stemple, katerha, StockMonkeys.com, Ramotionblog, andrewk3715, charlywkarl, AJC1, rachel_titiriga