When I taught English to Thai speakers, one of the more difficult concepts (not necessarily to teach, but rather to introduce the topic in a way that made it through my limited Thai and their limited English as something coherent), was that of countable and uncountable nouns. (Another was whether to use “more + ______” or “______er” for comparative adjectives – mainly because the rule relies on how many syllables the adjective has, and I had to a few semi-acrobatic and very noisy examples in order for one student to catch on and provide the rest of the class with the Thai word for “syllable.”
Last night as I did laundry I was thinking about chores as countable and uncountable. Though I don’t have a preference for countable or uncountable nouns (I do like it when they combine and you get to put an uncountable noun into a countable one, almost literally, as in “a glass of water” or “five grains of sand”), I definitely have a preference for countable chores like doing dishes and folding laundry. “Discrete vs. continuous” may be a more precise analogy, but I like the idea of countable chores, and I prefer a linguistics metaphor to a math metaphor (in this particular case…don’t hold me to it on a global level!) Uncountable chores, like vacuuming or cleaning the bathroom, are my least favorite and most avoided (because I find them, to choose one-syllable adjectives, the hardest and the grossest).
Granted, you could recategorize some of what I’ve labeled “uncountable” by saying “I need to clean one toilet and two sinks,” but I think I have a reasonable argument for my designations. For laundry and dishes, items of clothing and cutlery are countable. Dust is decidedly not, and even the dusty things, like the floor, are often uncountable themselves.
By the same token, it’s hard to break habits that have to do with time-wasting than it is to break habits that are easily quantifiable. And…this is kind of a cop-out for me, really, because most of those time-wasting habits ARE now quantifiable with things like phone tracking (I don’t know the technical term – I just know that I don’t have it because I haven’t gotten the new iOS update for my phone, and I may be a little too happy about not having it/being required to face how many minutes I spend on each app). And, of course, one could track one’s time (am I distancing myself from this issue by not using “I”? Probably), or at least estimate it, without fancy technology, but it’s so much easier not to. I can say “I’ve done pilates 3 times this week,” without expending any mental energy, but how much time I’ve spent on the internet this week? Forget it. Also, when I’m doing pilates, or practicing harp, I’m only doing that one thing (oh yes: this is where the dread not-really-effective multi-tasking comes in). If I’m on the internet, I’m probably eating, or talking to someone, or (yikes), um, also on my phone.
Yes, I have a problem and I’m kicking and screaming trying to avoid having that problem taken away from me. But in the spirit of the recent NYT article, I may be at a point of needing to reset/rewire my brain. And the way to do that (okay, a way to do that) is by quantifying my time-wasting habits. Making them countable. You might be thinking “deleting the apps that waste your time is a much more effective way to do this,” but I can’t hear you because 1) not psychic, and 2) the aforementioned kicking and screaming is too loud.
So, will the iOS update kill my phone? It’s old and I’m probably able to get a new one for free in about 2.5 weeks. It already throws up its hands and says “NO NO NO NO” when it’s below 20 degrees out (it’s just imitating what it’s seen me do, I guess).
