Time

"Time flies when you're having fun"
"A watched pot never boils"
"Time, is on my side. Yes it is" (this person obviously lives in another dimension)
"Time goes by so slowly, and time can do so much"

I know that time is, for all intents and purposes (at least for me and most people), a constant. (For more information, see the full wikipedia article, and the University of Manchester's Temporal Perception Lab) However, isn't it amazing how our perception of time changes? Maybe amazing isn't quite the right word- perhaps 'irritating' is better. For example- A slow day at work (or anywhere for that matter), or when you're somewhere you don't want to be, time seems to slow down and it seems that the day will never end. Each ticking second seems to take a century and a half. Then there's the opposite- when everything seems to take far longer than it should, and usually when you're either already late or have some impending deadline approaching. Need to tie your shoes? 5 minutes. Take the trash out? 10 minutes. Use the bathroom? At least another 5 minutes, depending on the task at hand. Those "few minutes" you try to savor relaxing in bed, enjoying the peace, comfort, and warmth before crawling out and into the world? That was half an hour(!). The speeding by seems to happen more often. It's even happening right now- as I try to pump this post out, and I realize that "Oh yeah, I've never installed GIMP on my new computer, and this looks really boring without pictures. Time to download and install that." And whether it is speeding by or nearly standing still, we always wonder where it all went, and find ourselves wanting/wishing/needing more.

What is the point of all of this rambling? There really isn't one, except (1) I experienced the latter point this morning, after forgetting to set the alarm, and (2) to waste some of this precious time. I guess some of it is more precious than others.