I am a creature of habit. There was once an entire year where I started off every day with a small nonfat chai tea latte from Starbucks, had avocado maki for lunch, had a low-fat omelet with a slice of bread for an afternoon snack, and ate a bowl of tomato soup for dinner. Every day. For a year.

Of course, I was working that year, and that made all the difference.

For me, and others like me, routine is important. Routine ensures you eat breakfast like you're supposed to and that you hit the gym for an hour after work.

Now that I am without a job I am without a routine. It sounds easy to create a routine, and many people do. People who work from home or at coffee shops and function well on a routine find a way to fit a routine into their non-traditional work lives. They get up at the same time every day, eat the same breakfast, hit the same coffee shop for the same number of hours, maybe hit the gym on the way home. They have the determination and willpower necessary to create their own routine amidst all their freedom.

I, on the other hand, tend to give in to the freedom. Despite what time I set my alarm, I manage to sleep in until 10:00 or later. Sometimes I forget to eat breakfast. I haven't been to the gym in a month.

But what is more frustrating for me about my lack of routine is it breeds laziness and apathy. I don't get out of bed early because I don't feel like it. And I find it increasingly difficult to accomplish the tasks I have set for myself. I find reasons to procrastinate instead of studying for the GRE or writing for one of the many blogs I am involved with.

Sometimes my procrastination is productive - I clean or cook instead of sitting down to "work." Sometimes it is not so productive - I check my email compulsively and dick around on facebook, as discussed in a previous post.

At the end of the day I have more hours available to me to be productive than most working people, and yet I use my time less wisely. To me, it appears that this lack of productivity and drive stems from a lack of routine. In fact, when I was working, I was often most productive in my personal projects when dicking around at work.

The truth is, I need a routine. I need a reason that I have to get out of bed early, instead of having a choice about it. I need to know that every day I get up at 9:00, eat breakfast, practice guitar for 10 minutes, blog, study for the GRE, go to the gym, eat lunch, blog, work on my grad school applications, go for a walk, eat dinner, and then have the evening free. For some reason within this structure I find it easier to thrive and to be the healthy productive person I want to be.

Instead, I got out of bed today at 10:00, have eaten spaghetti for two meals and a snack, am writing this on my couch in my robe, and have not set goals for tasks I plan to accomplish today. The truth is I love being unemployed, but I miss having a routine.

I am now writing opinion editorial columns for the op ed syndicate iPinion.

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Sometimes I forget that some people read this blog just to find out the basic details of my life. Sometimes I worry that this blog is becoming This Graduate School Life. Then I remember that this is THIS Unemployed Life for a reason. That this blog is about MY journey through unemployment, and for me, that means I now spend a fair amount of time talking about graduate school.

So today, after literally over a month of reading books about choosing the right Creative Writing MFA Program (yes, there are at least two books dedicated to the subject), studying the websites for the possible programs, and making a spreadsheet (yes, I made a spreadsheet to assist in this decision-making process), I have finally (with the help of my mom) narrowed down my list and chosen the twelve graduate schools that I will apply to.

Here, in no particular order, are the finalists:

Brown (in Providence, RI)

Syracuse University (in upstate New York)

University of Iowa

University of Massachusettes (in Amherst, Mass)

University of Michigan

University of Texas (in Austin)

University of Wisconsin

University of Florida (in Gainesville, FLA)

University of Minnesota

Vanderbilt University (in Nashville, TN)

Louisiana State, and

New York University

Why twelve schools? Well, basically, because one of the books I read said so! The above schools range in acceptance rates from 1.5% to <10%. So if I am lucky I will be accepted to one. If I am truly blessed, I will be accepted to more than one and will have the luxury of choosing between them.

With such low acceptance rates and incoming classes of poets ranging from 5 poets/year to 28 poets/year, it is important that I apply to several schools to give myself a better chance of being accepted. At the same time, with application fees ranging from $40-$75 per school, not to mention having to write separate statements of purpose for each school, I can't afford to apply to all twenty-three schools that made my original list.

So how did I chose these schools? And if I had the luxury of choice, why did I narrow the list down to include places like Iowa and Wisconsin?

I'll address the second question first, because I get that one A LOT. The answer is: Most of the schools that fund are in places people would not otherwise want to live. The list I narrowed from included more mid-western and southern schools, not a bunch of schools in California and New York.

My list was first narrowed by funding - I only considered schools that completely fund and provide some sort of stipend so I will have no student loan debts (above and beyond my $130,000 in law school debt) and will essentially make school my career, basically paying me to go to school. (NYU is the one exception to this - I can only attend this school if I am accepted AND given one of a very few selective fellowships, but living and learning in Greenwich Village is my dream, so I have to at least see if I can make it come true.)

Of the schools that fund I narrowed further based on location, program reputation, and the information I liked (or didn't like) on the program's website.

For location I first considered places I'd actually like to live (Austin & Manhattan), followed by places I could tolerate living in for various reasons (Ann Arbor, Providence, Amherst), and after that I just accepted that I might be very cold while in graduate school, so I'd better find myself in a program that I'll love enough to make it worthwhile.

Finally I used the schools' websites to decide what programs sounded up my alley. Which schools have three year programs as opposed to two year programs (three year programs produce better work from students)? Which schools would only have me teaching one course per semester so I could focus mostly on writing? Which schools had me teaching courses in creative writing as opposed to composition? Which schools had literary journals I could work on, active literary communities, websites that sounded welcoming, and produced students who were published or hired in tenure-track professor positions?

Finally, when many of the "maybe" schools had pros in some columns and cons in others, I went back again to location. Which schools were nearer to the ocean or were in cities that sounded more tolerable than others? I ended up cutting out both schools in Indiana, even though one school had a lot of pros, because when my father first settled in this country it was in Indiana, and the family forced the patriarch to get them the hell out of dodge, and stat.

In the end here is what is most important: If I am lucky, I will get into one of these schools. Which means I have to narrow down my application list so that I will be happy no matter which school accepts me. Of course I have my personal favorites, but I'm not getting my hopes up. It's in fate's hand now, so let's hope I gave fate a good lot to choose from.

I want to start by confessing that I spend A LOT of time on the internet. Much of it is productive. I read MFA websites as I narrow down the list of programs I plan to apply to. I study online for the GRE. I blog here, I edit the Saturday Poetry Series on As It Ought To Be, I write for the recently launched opinion editorial syndicate iPinion, and I occasionally find the time to do a little work on my poetry project blog.

Finding the time for all of those activities is hard enough. But really, I've got ten-to-twelve good hours in the day to work, and I'm lucky if I actually work for a solid four or five. And this was the case when I was employed full-time in a 40-hour-per-week job.

So where does the time go? I believe the answer is that the internet is the biggest time-sucker on the planet. Aside from the actual work I do, all I do on the internet is check my email and facebook. Yet I can easily hop on the internet to do those two things and find myself down the road an hour (or more!) with nothing to show for my time.

My girlfriend and I were talking last night and she confessed she routinely checks Dlisted to procrastinate from work. In the time she's spent at Dlisted she easily could have done the task she was putting off twice!

We ALL do it. This is why many companies block access to sites like facebook from company computers. But not all do. And those of us who work from home don't have that imposed restraint.

If you find the internet sucking the productivity right out of you, if you're like many of us and simply can't help yourself, there is a product called Freedom that will block the internet on your computer for you for up to eight hours. You tell the program when to block the internet and how long to block it for, and it shall set you free.

The internet sucks the time out of life. No question. It is the single-biggest reason I am not as productive as I want to be. But there is far more going on in This Unemployed Life than just dicking around on the net.

While I am writing this I am procrastinating from some notes I should be making regarding poetry publishing. I have two GRE study guides sitting next to me that are overdue and need to be returned to the library today, unread. Later tonight my GRE study group is meeting at my apartment.

I have to drive across town today to deposit my unemployment check. I can't simply take it to the local ATM because I moved my money from the bastards at BofA, chose a bank based on its merits, and now I can't deposit money without a 40-minute round-trip drive. And don't think for one second that the good people of EDD would be so kind as to provide direct deposit to its poor recipients.

On a good week the gym eats up an hour or two a day. Luckily I've injured my shoulder and am on a break from the gym this week, freeing up a little time. Starting next week I'm in a memoir writing class that will eat up my Thursday nights. Every other Monday I have guitar lessons. I am volunteering to help mediate a friend's custody situation including writing up the final agreement between the parents.

This weekend I have three different sets of social plans on Saturday alone. Today I had to turn down an offer to give a reading for the UC Berkeley Extension because it conflicted with Bay to Breakers. One weekend in June I have a bachelor party, two weddings, and a book club all in the span of one weekend.

Somewhere in there I have to register, study for, and pass the GRE with flying colors. I have to choose and polish a selection of my best poems for grad school writing samples. I have to write individualized personal statements for the applications to twelve separate graduate schools. I have to try to get some work published to bolster my literary CV. All this while continuing my weekly contributions to the aforementioned blogs and syndicates.

The truth is, I am writing this entry in my robe. I am still in the clothes I woke up in. I haven't even considered taking a shower yet today. If my stomach didn't grumble I wouldn't even find the time to eat.

People assume that because I am unemployed I have a lot of free time. The truth is, I can't remember the last time I had this many things on my plate. The struggle is how to balance it all, where do your priorities lie. If you can sort that out and master the art of effectively managing your time then you must not be on facebook.