Lady Macbeetroot

After several hopeless days of toil and trouble and still not being able to bring my essay on Macbeth and Citizen Kane to some smart ending, I put it aside a few days ago and continued working on the "aesthetical" essay about Schiller instead.
In the morning I realized that I have not counted my choosing the Master specialisation at my second department among all these "to-do" things yet. After several minutes of desperate searching through the department website and realizing that I don't even know what to imagine under the complicated names of those specialisations, not to mention the number and type of the courses I should press into my timetable somewhere between my American studies, teaching in several companies, writing a diploma thesis... and being able to stay alive, as my modest wish goes... I hoped I would be able to recover from this unpleasant epiphany by working hard on the Schiller essay as I promised and not planning something which is not yet certain to come, but it was a false hope. After four hours of uninterrupted, focused close reading and writing, and not thinking about anything/anyone else, I lost my nerves. I burst into desperate tears, knowing that I am not able to motivate myself enough to continue swimming in this sea of uncertainty that our faculty kindly offers. Spending the whole summer, or better said, the whole year in an unbelievable stress, writing bullshit about things I do not understand just to be able to listen to even more bullshit about things I understand even less, all that to get that silly diploma, so that I would finally be allowed to read, think and write about things I really like; not only paraphrase the "enlightened" philosophers over and over again (not that this was their fault).
Begging for an indiviual study plan - it's like Morpheus offering you the pills - either you take the antidepressants, or you don't. I have made it to this point, in spite of all my diseases, without enjoying any advantages concerning the studies from the dean's office. But today I felt that maybe it was a bad choice.
All right, let's just pretend for a moment that I have swallowed something except from the tears, which can transport me to another world:

My great-aunt can make an exceptionally delicious kind of preserved beet-root. I have always loved beet-root and I have seen proof that in my aunt's version it is edible, if not enjoyable, even for people, who are by no means beet-root supporters. This great-aunt of mine lives in a small village and goes to a church every Sunday. Once, after the mass, the priest waved at her and hinted that he would like to talk to her in privacy. She followed him to the sacristy not knowing what to expect and came back red by laughter and with a small plastic box in her hand. Inside the box there was a handwritten note from the priest "Would you be so kind as to write down the cook recipe for that unbelievable beet-root of yours for me?"
Of course it was more of a plea for some more red beet than for a recipe, but still, it was a great success and recognition for my great-aunt that she was capable of making something which seems unbelievable even to the priest. My mother got perhaps jealous (or, more likely, desperate because of our consuming the beet-root more quickly than my great-aunt was able to get us a new supply of jars of it) and asked my great-aunt for the recipe as well.
God knows why, perhaps the beet-root was cheap or the configuration of stars was suitable or she had planned it long ago and just decided to realize today - my mother spend the main part of the day in the kitchen, preserving the beat-root according the praised recipe.
That involved a LOT of red sauce spread all over the kitchen. So at the moment (the placebo taking me to another world have just stopped working) I have run out of my powers to continue writing, my mother has run out of her powers to clean up the kitchen...
I have therefore spent an indispensable part of the afternoon with hands plunged into a sink full of very sharp knives and dark red liquid. As I usually have self-destructive thoughts when touching sharp objects, today, despite of my feeling wretched, I was saved by - remembering Macbeth and his wife! The effort that I had to put forth to get rid of the red stains on my hands after sweeping the floor can't be compared to anything, including writing essays.
So. Grin and bear it, Lady Macbeetroot. There is aesthetics to be dealt with.
Motivation? A huuuge jar of beet-root.