As I hear the echo of a British accent; my heart drops, my head rises to attention like a solider saluting his commander, my train of thought is lost into oblivion, and my ears confirm the sarcastic snarl of a familiar companion, Dr. House. When attempting to complete homework assignments, I can’t help but give into the distractions provided by the unremitting world of television.

The dialogue, images, and background music is so serene and calming, realistic and memorizing. The television provides an escape from the stressful realities of my high school soap opera. It’s so simple to crumble under the television’s captivating episodes filled with imaginary peoples and hypothetical situations; where poor actions are not followed by severe consequences, in which every episode results in a hug or an apology from the Full House family erasing the mistakes DJ Tanner made only fifteen minutes prior.
Of course it seems that any activity is more compelling than completing the immense amounts of homework I have nightly. But it’s my therapist, the good ole tube, that relaxes my tension migraine as I sink between the compassionate cushions of my leather couch allowing reality (the three papers due by Friday, the SAT diagnostic test lurking on my bureau, a two hundred and forty page novel that may as well be written in Chinese, and a physics project that I haven’t even looked at yet) to be silenced by soothing laughter of my family as we crowd around my favorite distraction.
With the stress of college, the SATS, the ACTS, and my future, it’s much easier to follow the lives of others than to come to terms with the anxieties that vacate my nightmares. Instead I can cure mysterious illnesses with Dr. House and the rest of the hospital, solve murder mysteries bringing justice to victims and their families with detective Bones, not to mention practice my nightly shower performance with my fellow American Idols; placing my to-do list aside for just a minute or a couple of hours.