fridays are my study days

last week, i was reading an article in the new york times called "mondays aren't as blue as we think."  the article said two things: (a) despite all the anti-monday memes, research has shown that people aren't any more sad, stressed, or frustrated on mondays than any other weekday and (b) we often make decisions based on memories of experiences and our memories are often flawed (for example, we might remember an event based on how it made us feel, or we might remember the best parts of a vacation rather than the worst), which means that our decisionmaking processes might be equally flawed.

i can attest to this in terms of my own relationship to my eye illness, which i've had for about 11 weeks now.  despite that the illness is relatively serious and scary, i find myself forgetting the scariest moments or ill-est moments and thinking more about the ways that the illness has made me grow as a person, the way that it has made me a healthier eater, the ways it has made me more daring in my day-to-day life, and the friendships that have bloomed out of it (for example, some unexpected friends have been extra caring/interested/loving during this time and my relationships with my best friend, my husband, and my parents have all grown extra strong).  so, my memory has been skewed toward these particular facts and i often forget all of the icky and painful things that were also a part of the past 11 weeks.  where this becomes problematic is in my future decisionmaking: while i had no vision in my left eye, it was easy for me to abstain from eating nightshades or gluten or dairy, but now that i've gained most of my vision back, i forget how bad it was to not have vision in my eye and i forget how much my food choices affect my physical well-being (not that i'm the type of person to go out and have a giant slice of cake or eat 10 tomatoes, but more that i have had a hard time saying no to coffee and peanut butter cups this week!).

anyway, back to the article on mondays, i've found that our conceptions of certain days really do tend to guide what we think are appropriate activities for those days.  i was recently telling someone that friday nights are the nights when i curl up in bed with my cat and read.  the person was surprised, saying, "but you're so social -- i'd take you for a going-out-on-fridays type."  the truth is, i am social, but i also really enjoy my alone time and fridays feel a little too rowdy to go out.  i tend to go out with friends on weeknights instead.  i've also found that somehow, coming out of a stressful work week, fridays are the nights i like to get some homework in.  i have no clue how this works in my brain from a logic standpoint, but somehow it just does.  i feel productive and energetic on friday nights.  getting work done at a slow and easy pace feels relaxing, and it all sets me up to have less work over the rest of the weekend.