Decompressing.....

Just about coming down off the back of the maddest few weeks of work.
I somehow got it into my head that it was about time to bite the bullet with various things, knuckle down and get them done. For the couple of weeks before half term, the half term week and all this week I've caught up on most everything.

First there was the blog. Got a load of posts done in batches of 5 and set them all ready to go. In case you were wondering why everything seemed slightly out of time about certain posts and I seemed way off the news - that was why.

Then the reviewing. I've had a bookshelf full of stuff begging to get reviewed. Stuff I'd read a long time ago. Several mass reviewing sessions - helped no end by a couple of visits to Creepy Crawlies in half term - it's amazing the amount of work I can get done when there are no distractions and I'm on a limited battery life. Molly's happy because she knows she'll have a good time and I'll spend the last hour or so racing around like a mad thing chasing her after the battery has died on the Libretto. I'm happy because I'm getting reviews done.
So I'm now sat on 17 reviews for the FPI weblog. Should keep Propaganda going for a while (In theory till after Christmas). I can now knock out the occasional review over the next few weeks when I'm waiting for Molly at Sunday falconry or when we take another Creepy Crawlies trip.

Then the Teaching Assistant's course. This, as usual came way down the list of priorities. It's definitely a strange new experience for me - only doing the bare minimum and not really trying to do it well. Took some getting used to. I've finished the first module and it's handed in. Only another 6 to go. But at least I've got a while before the next deadline.

Finally, and most destructively time and health wise has been the school work. I keep banging on about this I know, but I can't get over quite how strange it is to have a job where not only do I care passionately about doing my very, very best but also being able to do extra work at home to get it all done.
I had a huge to do list of stuff. A lot of it can only be done at school, which is fair enough. But there we're several huge projects which could be done anywhere with a keyboard and an internet connection. But because they were huge, because the deadlines for them seemed so very far away, it was easy to put them off and just do the easily achievable jobs at home.
Of course, deadlines never stay far away forever and I was suddenly faced with the prospect of 6 huge jobs, all needing doing NOW. Or nearly now.
But I put the hours in and have just about come out the other side. It's taken a bloody herculean effort. It's also royally fucked me up. My sleep is all over the place and my stress is sky high. Not easy to see stress. This is the nasty stress - the too little sleep, no end to the work in sight, no time to sit and relax, eating badly, drinking too much, smoking too much and generally doing shit type of stress.
But it's done.
A couple of things to tidy up and sort.
But the To-Do list is now almost entirely composed of stuff to do at school or easy to do stuff at home.

Thank fuck for that.
I shall be celebrating my new found freedom by not having a drink, not drinking as much coffee, and generally being very good to myself.
I might settle back with a good book and that dvd of Battlestar Galactica I've had on the shelf for weeks though.

Bliss.
Of course. It's bound to happen again anytime now. But I'm not thinking of that now.