rabid elephants

In 2 weeks, I have to finish a draft of the research summary for the whole institute in 2005. I have never hated a work task as much as I'm hating this one. It is consuming me, and there seems to be a physical barrier that prevents me from actually doing it. No matter how often I say, "dickhead, just do the bloody thing," I revert to websurfing and other modes of procrastination. This, in turn, gives me the guilts for pretending that I'm actually hard at work. I want to come out of the closet, throw myself on the floor in front of my boss and confess to it all.

In the past couple of days I've daydreamed about 1) being fired, 2) leaving an apologetic note and flying home to Oz, never to return, and 3) subcontracting the job out to someone else, paid for out of my own pocket (probably not feasible, but right now I'd be willing to foot the US$2000 I estimate it would cost). In an attempt to feel better, I emailed the guy who had this job in 2003 and 2004:

I don’t need a reply to this, but had to get it out somehow: This is the most fucking mind-numbing piece of shit task I’ve ever had to do in my life. I’d rather be buggered by rabid elephants.

It worked, but only fleetingly. His response:

Editing the report is exactly being buggered by rabid elephants, but they're invisible. Actually, I've done some things recently that are more mind-numbing. The report, as I recall, ends up being a string of utterly unrelated sentences, saying this was done, that was done, this other thing was done. But, when it comes to staggering, blinding, oh-my-god-not-again repetitiveness, some XXX staff and consultants are in a class of their own.

The empathy is appreciated but I don't feel all that much better...