A quick break

- - - - before the storm hits: I’m about to start plate coating again (on the day I return from holiday!) as well as running a routine evaluation assay, pick up where I left off etc.

What was I thinking about earlier? Free-form or organised life.

There’s a challenge and demand I’m becoming increasingly aware of: the demand that everything is organised, ordered, sequenced and set in place. I love to live free-form, where I do whatever falls to hand and needs to be done right now, and while a certain degree of planning is quite acceptable, preferable even, I still prefer to *mostly* live in the now rather than in sequence.

The challenge is coming because there aren’t really enough hours in the day to operate free-form, and some things have to go out so the most important get done. This isn’t just work related, but stuff like preparing for church related things all require some advanced planning. However preparing stuff in advance requires memory, and that’s a commodity in very short supply. It’s no good preparing a week or 2 weeks in advance if you can’t remember or store up your original line of thinking and enthusiasm.

Another thing springs to mind. Randall mentioned he was surprised at how pastoral I apparently was in our discussions. Today I felt like a donkey a couple of times (not just an ass) having all kinds of things placed on its back: I almost wanted to run away in despair! This has given me an insight and sense of pity for those that pastor churches where there is continual dissention and strife – how do they cope? It was nice to be welcomed, but someone here said they were glad I was back because I would referee and hopefully stand between them and the combatants. This IS work – not a Baptist church - although it sometimes feels like people think it is one.

Just one more thing – I have a large mozzie bite on my neck that keeps bleeding, and one on the palm of my left hand that sometimes itches furiously

Ho hum. Back to the lab.