Lost Without LOST

I just completed my first marathon. It was rigorous and took hours of dedication. I had to push myself to keep going when at times I thought I couldn't continue. This marathon tested my strength and showed me that when I put my mind to something I can accomplish anything, no matter how great the task.

Someone get me a gold medal, because I finally finished Seasons 1 through 5 of LOST.

It all started back in April, when my friend Nate told me he wouldn't speak to me anymore if I didn't at least watch the first few episodes of the series. Feeling left out of all the convos about the show between my friends, I decided to see what this crazy island was all about.

So on a cold rainy day, after job searching of course, I went to abc.com to enter the world of Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, Sun, Jin, Hurley and the Others. I was skeptical going into it. What could be so riveting about strangers stranded on a bizarre island, with a bunch of loony characters and some underground stations? Isn't that what we're doing in New York City?

However, I was quickly proven wrong about five minutes into the pilot. Suddenly, I was hooked. And the most dangerous part, I had nothing but time and all 103 episodes at the click of my fingertips. I didn't have to wait a week for the next episode, or a summer for the upcoming season; it was all right there for my viewing pleasure. Talk about temptation.

I think that first day I finished eight episodes, which is roughly 336 minutes on the island. Winter was still lingering in NYC (as it always does), and I needed a tropical escape - without having to buy a ticket to Maui. LOST became my vacation, my drug and my life.

I completed the first three seasons in exactly three weeks. I'll let you do the math on that one. I felt like the crazy French woman, Danielle, who was cooped up in her tree house for 16 years by herself. I was cooped up in my apartment, alone, waiting for a prisoner (aka: friend) that I could capture and make watch the show with me. I wondered what kind of boobie traps I could set at my door...

I started having dreams that I was on the island, running from smokezilla and trying to get in the hatch. One night I woke up in a panic about the numbers...4 8 15 16 23 42... too afraid to look at my clock because I feared I would see the cursed numbers. I'm dead serious.

I found myself yelling at my laptop during my LOST binges. If I could just finish, then I could get back to life on this crazy island. Back to real life of job searching. The truth is, I felt more productive finishing each season than I did looking for a job. Because finding a job is about as easy as finding the island itself.

When I got to Season 5 (the last leg!), something horrible happened. It was a huge leg cramp in my marathon. Abc.com only had the last 7 episodes of the season. I didn't want to buy them on iTunes, so I thought that I had to wait until they were up on ABC. But, when a person is pushed hard enough, they find a way around challenges and leg cramps. Thanks to Bianca, I learned about Surfthechannel.com and found those lost 11 episodes of Season 5. I had to endure Japaneses subtitles and the frequent freezing and skipping, but I made it through so that I could finish triumphantly.

Now that I'm caught up with the rest of the world, I have to wait until next year to see what happens post hydrogen bomb explosion. What am I going to do without Saywer's nicknames and the creepiness of John Locke? I've left the island for a bit, and until I return in 2010, it's time to put that dedication of finishing the series into landing a job.

If only I could time travel back to when the market was as booming as that hydrogen bomb.