Lent

I always forget about Lent since I’ve been in college. It was easy to remember going to a Catholic gradeschool and highschool, because you’d be like “oh, it’s Lent!” But not having reminders in college I’d go through half of March thinking “Why are they always serving fish on Fridays? That’s unusu……ohhhhhh.”

Anyway, entirely regardless of religion, I think any period of making a material sacrifice can be an enriching experience if you have the right mindset.

So this year for Lent (since I remembered it), I’m going to give up extraneous internet, which will be a huge challenge, but I think I can pull it off. The terms defining “extraneous” are as follows.

1. I’ll still use it for research, because I can’t get around that, but no leisurely browsings of forums, art sites, chats, Homestarrunner, etc. I’ll probably accomplish this by doing most of my internet research in labs, which provides an environment in which I feel like I have to be doing real work.

2. I’ll keep instant messenger open to people at school and family who may need to contact me for school or family-related business, but otherwise no IM

3. No LJ, neither friends list readings nor updates. The exception is I’ll probably be auctioning off glass to get money to pay for that color, so I’ll likely post a link to the auction as an update.

I think that mostly covers things. This process will have an additional benefit, in that hopefully it will force me to focus more on school and post-graduation planning, which is always very heavy in March. So, if anyone has a drastically important need to contact me, do it by Mardi Gras (that’s Tuesday). I’ll probably do an update Tuesday night.

5 thoughts on “Lent”

  1. Wow, seems like everyone’s giving up the internet lately, not just for Lent. It would probably be a good idea for me to do it too, but knowing that I’m not as addicted as some people and that I actually use it to look for stuff half the time I’m on it comforts me a bit.

    …that and I don’t think I could do it without going insane. 🙂 I’m too far in the hole to get out now!

  2. I joined too many browser-based online-games to quit private internetting. And then having to catch up on all the webcomics I read? I don’t think, I could do it. But if it gives you a feeling of achieving something, like more time for your projects or offline console-gaming, then do it.
    And always fish on fridays? Having worked in a catholic retirement/nursing home, I know that there is also birds as a menu-option [Clerics know how to play around the rules by saying fish and birds are not meat. Hmm can vegetarians bypass their no-eaty-meat rule like that, too?].
    And for some reason, there’s always some stew (chinese cabbage, turnips, lentil-stew with lots of leek. I hate leek) on saturday there. While eating my own food from home on saturdays there, I was pondering the historical trauma the old people might endure by getting turnip-stew, since some lived long enough to have had endured the turnip-winter in WW1.

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