What's wrong with traffic these days?

Let's begin on a positive note. Today we finished up our graduation project and turned it in to the teacher. So now all we have to do is wait for the seminars to finish, do whatever changes that needs to be done and then... finally!
Of course, I still have my thesis to finish up but for now I'm going to bask in the fact that the largest, and possibly most important, part of my education is done. It's been interesting, horrifying, devastating and fun. And God am I glad that it's over!

Now, on to traffic (which I'm not as happy with)... I'm starting to wonder if Monday is the new Friday. I wrote in an earlier post about how people drive like maniacs, callously disregarding any and all traffic rules as well as their own and others' safety, during Fridays. Well, Friday seems to have been extended to encompass Monday as well as Tuesday too so far.

Yesterday I was calmly driving towards the stable, abiding by the traffic rules set by our country's leaders way back. I come up at a junction, having put out the sign for a left turn in advance to make sure my fellow drivers knew where I was headed. I placed my car to the left in my lane and stopped to let a car on the crossing road pass (since it's my duty to give way). Then all of a sudden I see this dark blue Citroën coming up behind me, blinking left as well. And then the bastard places himself (it's gotta be a man, women generally drive in a more safe manner) on MY left, right next to my car. Now, if I hadn't seen him coming this could've led to a rather nasty collision. Anyway, the idiot blasts past me and since I'm not very fond of having to use up all my duct tape to tape up my front bumpers (been there, done that, spit on the T-shirt) I allowed my safety thinking to overrule my sheer burst of anger and murderous rage. I saw him do the same to some other car a few minutes later. Damn idiot.

One would think it would end there. No one got hurt (even though I admit I fervently wished the bastard would drive off a cliff that would suddenly and inexplicably materialise right in front of his car and just as quickly disappear) and I managed to get my temper under control. All's well that ends well, right?

NO. Because today, when driving home, I come to another junction. I've signalled a right turn in advance, placed myself as well as I could and... up comes this beat-up, piss-ugly old pile of rust (possibly a Ford), squeezes in on my right, signalling a right turn. Repeat the scenario from Monday, omitting the part where he did it again since I didn't actually follow for that long. Pick the scenario up at the part with the mysterious cliff materialising in front of the car...

Seriously, what's wrong with people? It's like as soon as they sit down behind the wheel of a car they all turn into Evel Knievel on crystal meth. It's at times like these I wish I had a huge neon-sign of a hand flipping the middle finger to turn on and shine at all the morons out there.

Procrastination level going up

And so we begin a new week... A week when I hopefully will get around to doing the stuff I should've been doing last week.

I've got the introduction for my thesis to work on, I need to burrow down in the archives and read a load of articles. I also need to go through the 15+ books lying at the floor by my desk, resembling a bag of angry rattlesnakes more and more for every day. And I also need to hunt down those elusive and mystical journalists that I need for my interviews on the journalistic language.

Why is it that I can never do anything useful unless I'm under incredible stress (as in 4 hrs before deadline of a 40 page thesis-type of stress)? I guess it's human nature to want to procrastinate. Don't do today what you can do tomorrow, even if doing it tomorrow will give you a nervous breakdown because it's too late.

I really envy those people who can set up a schedule for what they have to do and when to do it... and then actually manages to follow that schedule. I'm the stereotypical messy, creative personality. I'm always flitting about doing nothing of any use until reality comes to bite my ass and I manage to pull through in the last second (kinda like how Hollywood heroes always manages to find the right wire to disarm the bomb a fraction of a second before it's going to blow up). I'll probably end up chewing Valium before I turn 30. Then again, chocolate is a much nicer way to handle stress. However, then the added stress of exercise rears its ugly head, grins madly at me and waves a medical pamphlet about clogged up veins and heart attacks in my face. It seems life wasn't designed to be easy for the lazy...

And yet humanity continues to try and find the next wonder-product that'll allow us to be even more lazy. And then they air the commercial about how you can work from home with computers, never having to leave your house if you want to, right in between commercials for various training exercises and diets. Is that irony or what?

In any case, this lazy Swede will have to get a grip soon enough. After all, my thesis allows me to legitimately play the language fascist. Which I am so pathetically good at.