Water Parade

I feel like doing absolutely nothing, apart from maybe staring at the dust on my monitor screen in anticipation to clap my hands if the speck of dust moves. I have 8 hours of sleep behind me yet I still feel like I need more. My identity card says I’m 28 yrs old yet I feel like 60. I’m coughing as well, which adds further evidence that my preliminary observation may not be too far from the truth. Tuesday was meant to be my research day, yet I’m halfway into declaring it to be a ‘no-work’ day, and instead spend time to complete my sandcastle construction project.

Maybe I’m burned out, as the last few weeks have been really hectic. I actually worked to 2am in the office for three days straight. It was a great experience actually when I finally got my work done. The sense of achievement was almost as good as getting a full-house in poker. I needed to write a paper from scratch and I actually did it in five days. I was rather proud of myself with the thought that I could finally call myself an academic. My self-praise and celebration were short-lived when arnette announced that she had a deadline to complete five papers in a week. I suddenly felt like a tadpole in a well. The anticlimax was like a dying cartoon jingle played through a broken speaker.

I really wish that this cough will go away. It is something that I can never get used to, despite suffering from viral coughs twice in a year. You tell yourself, maybe it’ll go away the next day, but you still find yourself croaking your lungs out in the morning. Traditionally, this kind of cough would only leave me alone after four weeks, but I’m still naive enough to hope. Drink lots of water they say, so I end up visiting the toilet as often as I need to procrastinate when I work. I think I’ve tried everything in the cabinet, cough syrup (with and without codeine), chinese herbs, vitamin C, zinc and garlic extracts, cough drops and here is a new one, Manuka honey. Maybe I’m getting desperate. I have three more days before CG is coming over for dinner and I’m pretty keen to make an impression. I guess coughing away while you make the red-wine sauce ain’t really the kind of impression I want to make. I’m running out of ideas continue to drink lots of water I guess and perhaps make the washing-closet my second home.