Do you have December 31 deadlines for anything? Or do the holidays stress you out all by themselves, without any help from your job?

On a related topic, are you a big old procrastinator like me, or are you always ahead of the game? Do you always manage to pull things out at the end?

-- Anonymous, December 27, 1999

Answers

Actually my panic period ends with Christmas. Now I just look forward to lots of liquor on New Year's.

But the reason I am posting is I am still curious, what was the best gift you received that you could not tell us on Sunday?

-- Anonymous, December 27, 1999

Urgh. Actually, I'm procrastinating even now... putting off going in to work (oh, it will be so quiet & dark in there, on the civic holiday) to finish off a newsletter that should have been done on Friday.

Yes. I had a bazillion things that needed to be done. Well, a half-dozen. On the 24th, as I'm supposed to be driving to Ottawa tomorrow, and most places round here aren't open till Wednesday. Did they get done? Some of 'em. And I busted my butt for that, too, only to find that I couldn't do the essentials because of people who were shut Xmas Eve (darn them!). So at this point I'm finishing off the newsletter, because of all the folks who would call in and whine about the waste of tax dollars if it doesn't show till halfway through January, and the rest can just rot.

Bah humbug. My Xmas was merry, though.... good loot, & a nice Solstitial celebration.

-- Anonymous, December 27, 1999

As a litigator, I pretend not to know that anything can be accomplished before the eve of the deadline. I'm doing okay now that Christmas is over, and it's at least two days too early to look and see if I have any December 31 deadlines. (Disclaimer to clients and employer: This post is a joke.)

-- Anonymous, December 27, 1999

Wow -- to those of you who don't appreciate how stressed out Beth is at year's end, check out her journal entry for 12/31/97 (the link to it is in the 12/27/99 journal entry that spawned this thread).

Read it carefully. She yelled at a court clerk.

For those of you who don't get it, that's like, you're on the Green Mile and you yell at Tom Hanks. Or you have a dispute with your drill sergeant during live grenade practice, or spit at your jump instructor the first time you skydive. I am impressed and not a little intimidated. Let's all be very civil in the coming days, eh?

-- Anonymous, December 27, 1999

oooh, that's right. When she first wrote that and I read it, a "court clerk" was just an Anything Muppet, just some 2-dimensional character in Xeney's semi-fictional life. Now, however, I'm a CASA and I see court clerks occasionally, and there is no way in the known universe that I would ever yell at one.

This year I am so mellow it's scary. And do I procrastinate? Of course not!! I will be ready for the Bicentennial in plenty of time!

-- Anonymous, December 28, 1999

Thank god, I don't have December 31 deadlines for anything.

That's good because I am also a big old procrastinator. I always manage to get things done, but it's close. The few times I have managed to start some project way before it was due, and do a little bit every day, I felt great and was so glad I did it that way. But I havn'e been able to make that a way of life.

(I'm procrastinating last week and this - I should be working on a long term project but I'm fooling around on the Web...)

-- Anonymous, December 28, 1999

No rush or anything but I don't think my computer is going to survive. So I'm really really stressed out about that. I won't be able to replace it for a long time if it doesn't work.

-- Anonymous, December 30, 1999