This post has been exaggerated a bit, but just a little bit

In my house, the TV goes relatively unused.  Other than showing the occasional family film, it's more decorative than functional.  However, in the past year and a half, I've taken on a new hobby.  Ever since my family bought Netflix, I've been absorbing TV shows like a sponge.  Fringe, Lost, White Collar, Arrested Development, Torchwood, V; if I enjoy the first episode, I'm hooked.

This brings about obvious problem.  Some days I spend hours watching episodes when I could be out frolicking in the sunlight.  I've missed outings with my friends, inside jokes, and sleep.  I've become a pale zombie.  This recession from active life isn't a complete waste, however.  My passion in life is acting; that is what I want to do for the rest of my days.  Not only do I watch these episodes, I study each character and the actor playing them.  You could say that I watch TV purely for educational benefit, but you would be lying.   I learn from the emotional scenes that I watch, but the real reason that I watch episode after episode is because of the creativity they show.  I compare watching my series with reading a bunch of books at the same time.  I can watch an episode and be completely engrossed, transported to this other world filled with intrigue and mystery, and then switch shows and look in on the crazy daily lives of the most dysfunctional family ever. 

TV provides a quick and easy escape from the real world, though it has its downsides.  The more you detach from life through TV...the more you detach from life - that should be implied.  Eventually, every new excursion into the real world becomes less and less comfortable and natural.  You find the darkness of your room, glowing with the light of the screen, more comforting than the warmth of the sun.

I should really cut down on my TV use, this is depressing.

Lost: Episode 1

The show starts with an eye.  It opens and the pupil dilates.  A man wakes up in the middle of a jungle, disoriented.  He examines his wound- a massive gash crossing his stomach like a crack in the earth- and begins to run, searching for a way out of the dense brush.  He bursts out onto a beach and into chaos.  Screams, shouts, and the sounds of machinery get louder as he stumbles forward.  The source of this noise comes into view.  People are scrambling around the beach, injured, crying.  Wreckage of a passenger plane is strewn everywhere, and the hulking mid-section of the craft is sitting at the center, one wing pointed to the sky.  The man immediately goes to work, enlisting other survivors to help him pull people from under debris.  He finds a young woman, 8 months pregnant, having contractions on the beach.  After finding someone to take her to a safe area, he moves on to a woman who is being resuscitated by a young man.  He takes over and manages to revive the woman, but immediately is interrupted by the sound of snapping cables.  Looking up, he sees that the plane's wing is poised to fall directly on the pregnant girl.  He sprints, screaming as he does, and pushes them out of the way before the wing crashes to the ground, exploding.  Finally, as everything calms down, his name is revealed to be Jack, and he is a neurosurgeon.  It seems that Jack has assumed the leader role without formal election.  The survivors are preparing shelters and settling down, when a terrible noise rips through the silence.  All look toward the jungle, where clumps of trees are falling like dominoes.  The sound is very mechanical, but impossible to define.  As the survivors gather on a hilltop overlooking the jungle, the screen goes black.  The answers to the island's mysteries will have to be left for another episode.

Sitting in the Library

Everything is so still that any noise, even one as quiet as a pencil scribbling on paper, seems to be amplified a hundred times.  Something about this reminds me a winter's day, with books rather than the snow sapping the sound from the air.  In such silent, still surroundings there is almost a comfy feeling, as if the air is a giant blanket.  The smell is subtle, but always present.  The scent of old, crackling paper emanates from the countless bookshelves.  Thumbing through my book, I feel the rough texture of the page, worn out by hundreds of hands.  There are dozens of others sprinkled throughout the library's massive space, but I feel completely alone.  I look at my book. The spine is brittle, barely holding its aged contents together.  The embossed title is juxtaposed against the white sticker below it, denoting the call number.  Inside the book's cover is a small pocket holding dozens of cards, recording the hundreds of past renters over the tome's life. Each signature is fainter than the one before it, as I scan the cards, like memories that fade over time.  I wonder if the previous owners were feeling what I feel.  I picture them alone in the library, searching for any information that will prove useful in the essay to come.  I leave the library and am struck with the contrast in environment.  The sun warms my face, and the absolutely stillness is broken by a slight breeze.  I hear people talking in the distance; it confuses me to suddenly hear so much.  Although I was perfectly at peace in my silent home, I realize how I can take for granted the pleasant breeze, the warm air, the bright colors, and the smell of growing grass outside the confines of the library.

How I write

Writing and I have a complicated relationship.  In high school, I dreaded each and every assignment, and I was constantly disappointed with my inability to get my thoughts down on the page as well as I hoped.  However, I found myself stuck with writing-centered classes my first year of college, most of which were populated primarily by upperclassmen.  Suddenly forced to produce a greater number of higher quality work, I knew I probably would have to change the way that I approached writing.  The fear of utter failure boosted my focus and I performed surprisingly well on my papers.  The method I found was to get my least favorite part of writing, starting out, out of the way.  I would hole up in a secluded corner of the library and work for hours on end, finishing a very rough draft of my paper a few days before the draft or final due date.  After this, I would feel completely confident in editing any part of the paper.  I would go into the library with a strict mindset to get work done, and I was successful at resisting any outside distractions.  I know my writing habits are not perfect yet, and hopefully I'll adapt and learn new ways to efficiently work, but so far, this "all at once" approach has worked for me.