Work, life and things in between – Day 86 – No holding back!
Other than being sleep deprived and threatening to pack up and leave if I had to get up one more time to dance, everything was going well on campus!
Had no complaints.
In fact, there was a lot there I was thoroughly enjoying. I felt somewhat like Asterix and the magic brew (sorry if you don’t know the story, something about rebels in France before it was France and the Roman Empire). I seemed to have landed in a place where the topics of discussion, interests, concerns, readings were all great and better yet, I could share them with others.
The sharing was the novelty. At work, the list of things we had to take care of and deal with was so exhaustive and so pressing, by the time we were done with the necessities of work, there was no time, no interest and as a matter of fact, no one left to talk to about exciting topics.
I was used to brewing a lot of these in my head. Don’t you find I did a lot of stuff in my head?
Maybe it is a good thing after all. Had I said out loud everything I said to myself over the course of my career so far, I may have very well ended up in jail instead of University. Who’s to tell? Hard to know how people react sometimes.
Minds are like people. They like to create friendships and tend to hang around those who have things in common with them. So, in the rare times when my colleagues were not sitting around a conference table and therefore could engage in topics of interest, they were passionately arguing about which team will win the Super Bowl or the price of gold and I sometimes felt a bit odd, something like wearing a 3 piece suit at a rave party.
Don’t get me wrong. There was a lot about my previous work environment I thoroughly enjoyed. I just don’t know how to bridge what I liked then and what I want now. Like making apple sauce. You want to keep the pulp and throw away the pits! I know there is a way to do that.
Maybe I should ask my mother.
Anyway, came the end of the day, it was time to hit the road again. I was flying to Ottawa where Tem picked me up at the airport. He had business in town all week and I was going to enjoy a week of R&R.
And a happy week it was indeed.
So I did not feel too guilty and ensured I would still fit in my clothes by the end of the week, I headed down to the pool daily for an hour’s swim. Most of the time I was alone. The water was warm, the room quiet and I felt on cloud nine.
Lunch, more reading or working on my computer, a walk into town, Happy hour with Tem at the end of the day, long walks followed by dinner in a nice local restaurant he had picked.
I dare say. Sabbatical was not all that bad! To day 87.