How To Waste a Indefinite length of time
By: Evan Schatz
Early this morning my father informed me that I had a Dermatologist appointment at 2:30 that afternoon. Visiting the dermatologist dose not bother me, but the fact that we use the best one in the state and there is a minimum hour long wait to get in. A typical visit starts with me arriving 10 minutes early, and signing in on the registry. Than I wait anywhere from the unusual 45 minutes wait to get called to a room, to the normal 1 hour and 10 minute wait, or all the way to the sometimes 2 and a half hour wait. Now after all that time sitting in a completely silent room, where all you hear is the flipping of pages in woman’s magazines, you think you would get in a room and the doctor would see you. But instead you wait more, this second wait time vary in length and can easily be expressed in words, but since I am now in the doctors waiting room trying to kill time with my new laptop I will instead create some mathematical formulas to represent the time that you have to wait.
First I need to create some variables:
t1 = The first wait time
t2 = The second wait time
A simple idea could be something along the lines of:
t1(1/2)=t2
or in basic terms the second wait time is half the first, but this is only true is basic terms, where as there is in fact a margin or error in calculating this statistic and given a sample of wait times I could calculate that. Maybe I will start to record wait times in order to find this out.
But to be more accurate I could include the time of day and number of people in the equation, possibly a coefficient derived from both added to the equation would work. And if I am going that far why not add in external factors such as time of year, day of the week and so on. Why, if I was not so lazy, and limited by battery life than I could accurately predict just how long I will have to be sitting here.
But I digress.
Even with all of that I am still sitting here in a silent room getting funny glances from people over there magazines because I am typing on my laptop in the middle of the doctor’s waiting room; I can imagine their thoughts now as they look at me. Something along the lines of this:
“look at the young man over there, so caught up in modern technology that he has to carry around on of those machines with him where ever he goes. I bet he couldn’t go for one day with out that infernal contraption on his lap.”
Well, for your information imaginary person; I just got this thing and I have lived for years of my life without it.
“look at that weird guy over their with that laptop, who dose he think he is with that thing anyway? Just because he is rich enough to be able to afford one of those things dose not mean he is better than me!”
I may be weird, but I am most assuredly not rich, in fact I had to get this thing for collage and my dad paid for it. And I am better than you even with out this thing anyway.
“Look at that hot guy over their with the fancy laptop, I wonder if I can get his phone number”
Sorry ladies I am already taken.
So as you can see, the waiting room is full of strange people, one of which is on a laptop and paranoidly imagining what other people are thinking about him.
[[Life lesson #1: avoid waiting rooms, the crazy people will get you if you don’t, and all doctors do is witchcraft any way.]]
What was that just now in the double brackets? That was my new blog feature I just made up, where I point out important life lessons in my writing.
So after all that typing I am still here… waiting.
Well I went off and waited for while, listening to music and what now. But I just overheard that they are a hour behind, but when they admit that it really means they are much more than an hour behind. Oh well, I still got 58% battery remaining and my power supply cord if I really wanted to keep running. I disabled my wireless antennas and turned my screen brightness all the way down; that should conserve my battery a little more. This is a good test of the power system and power saving setup. There is quite a difference between the predicted battery life when in ‘power saver’ vs. ‘performance’ mode. Almost and hours and a half extra time.
Wow, this is turning into a 2 page long rant in MS Word. Oh well, no one reads my stuff anyway so I guess no one minds a long post.
Well I think I changed the room’s impression of me, an elderly woman with a walker tried to leave, but she was having difficulty with the heavy door. When I looked and saw this the rest of the room just watched, probably wondering I the old woman would make it or not, while also thinking about dinner or something. So I pulled out my earbuds and set my $1800 laptop on the floor to hold the door open for that woman to get out. Now I remember why I hate people, they never help anyone but themselves.
[[Life Lesson #2: Old Ladies can be funny to watch, but helping them is a good thing. Helping someone out make you feel better about yourself.]]
Haha! I used the life lesson thing more than once! It might catch on with me.
Well, now they say there an hour and twenty minutes behind. I have been here for exactly and hour and twenty minutes so I hope I will get through soon. I helped another elderly person with a walker through the door, so now the room probably thinks I am Jesus or something. At 38% battery on maximum power saver I have exactly 1 hour remaining.
Well finally I was called in to see the doctor, 2 hours after my appointment. Although I only waited for five minutes for him to come see me, which is strangely short. I had my five minutes with the doctor, than I left. Making an appointment for another visit in six months, better bring my laptop again.
