What keeps me up at night?

Deadlines, unfinished work, and a growing To - Do List.
I should manage that better by assigning out work and collecting the deliverables. Still, Sometimes what happens is that the people you need are not there, und they don't-get back to you. So what do you do? You follow up, of course!
It Sounds easy, but what if The person you sent out stuff to is still not available. Hmmm. l do have a problem then.

Stop and smell the roses...

It happened suddenly. I was sketching in between writing a report on my pc and reviewing a workshop agenda. I'm in need of bifocals and things very close to the edge of my table blur out, so whenever I have a lot to read, I take my glasses off to see better. If I dont, I get this feeling that my eyes are jammed in their sockets, and this has always been a sign that its time to take my glasses off. But this time, I found that taking my glasses off didn't help, and my eyes couldn't focus and I felt that everything I tried to focus on was blinking. I pushed myself off the table and took a deep breath, but it didnt help. I got up and took a walk, but it didn't go away. I felt like there were rings behind my eyeballs that restricted their movements. I was left fighting a feeling of disorientation, and after a while a distinct distaste built up in the back of my mouth.
After a long while, the feeling subsided; my eyes felt heavy and I felt extremely tired. I left the office and grabbed a bite to eat, and a cup of coffee and although that made me feel better, I felt like I "wasn't quite all there".
The doctor I met the next day without batting an eyelid listed out the game plan. Firstly, I had to promise to take 2 weeks off work. Then, he would run me through a series of tests, and thirdly, depending on the results, he'd work with me to ensure that he'd bring down the indicators to normal levels.
And that's where I am now. In 12 hours, I'd be in his room and we'd be discussing my test results. In the meantime, I'm here in front of my pc, with a monitor on my arm taking readings every 20 minutes.
Deep down inside, I'm feeling relieved that a whole load of "to-do" items have been taken off my shoulders, but I'm also fighting a sense of guilt that a whole bunch of things I promised to deliver didn't happen. Compounding that is the fact that these things cannot wait for me, and for those people, its bad enough I'm not delivering the stuff I promised, now they have to pick up the bits and pieces, blow the dust off and try to piece together and deliver.
At the same time, as bad as I feel, I'm really touched by all the get well wishes, the phone calls and the e-mails I've recieved. I'm hoping for good news tomorrow, so that I can make up on all the broken promises.
Thank you dear friends, for letting me know that I can count on you all to keep the ship going. Thank you, too, for wanting to come by and catch up on how I'm doing. Lastly, thank you for the prayers.

Breathe

Ever since I came back from the workshop, I've found myself rather tardy with my e-mails and all things electronic.
Boss-man was out of commission, and my meetings that I regularly get him to chair had returned to me. All of a sudden, I found the meeting room to be almost like home.
Everything's moved in a blur of reports, meetings and discussions. And when boss-man returned, things did not let up because all his stuff I did for him I had to clean up, all the stuff that got left behind, had to get caught up and now that boss-man is back, there's a pile waiting.
I'd not been able to catch up with my e-mails during the day, so I'd spend the evenings going thru them.
when the week started I had promised myself that I would take a break this long CNY weekend, but before I knew it, its already here upon me, and just as I thought I'd see the top of my table again, the dumspter of labor stopped by and covered the offensive patch of glass with more paper.
But, as always: it's just work, and the weekend is here, so lets not spoil the weekend with more work, instead lets kick back, relax, enjoy this moment and breathe.
To all my friends rushing home to reunion dinner, drive safe. To those rushing home to make the most of the time with their loved ones, enjoy every moment.
Have a safe holidays, all. Take a moment to draw a deep, deep breath, savor each moment and let the memories linger.
God bless.

An awakening

Its always an amazing experience to run a weekend workshop. This weekend was a milestone in my team's workshop mileage.
We had many weeks to prepare for the workshop as the period chosen initially smacked right in the middle of the December holidays; the hotels were only available in this period in January. The workshop was huge; a total of seven sessions were planned to cover the entire sweep of our client.
All these while our workshops are planned with our good chief being available to oversee or conduct it, so we went about the planning and design in good stead. Two days before the workshop, though, our chief took ill, and it was left to us to make the workshop happen.
We fought the temptation to delay the workshop and decided to proceed as planned. We, after all weren't inexperienced; we each had clocked a reasonable number of workshops. It was only the sheer size of the workshop that daunted us.
Still, despite our fear, we gritted out teeth and proceeded. Every swiftlet reaches a point where it must spread its wings and fly, and every swimmer has to let go of the sides.
The fear of having missed out something was real, and there were moments where self doubt reared its ugly head; but in the end, knowing that you are alone in the swirling ocean of the moment, that to fail or to finish depends on what you decide to do with the rudder and tack in your hands, you grit your teeth and decide that only you know what needs to be done.
In the end, we finished the workshop, and, what matters is that we reached the shore, neverminding that we lost our supplies along the way and that the sail is in tatters and the oars broken.
With the passing of the storm, the morning sun brings a new warmth and lights a new day.