And it's goodnight from him...
...and good morning from him. I'm discovering the stress and strain of when your world really is flat, when your world barely sleeps, as you finish living a full and enrichening day in one time zone, only to have your other just as full and enrichening life begin in earnest on the other side of the planet.
Normally, I manage to juggle a fair amount of stuff: private life, public service job and commissions. Since deciding to spend these two weeks working on behalf of Learning and Teaching Scotland in New Zealand, I've begun to realise what it means when they say "the world never sleeps".
It's 20h48, I've just spent a full day researching, reading and planning some work for the next month or so. I've had a supper with Morgane in the hotel room. I'm on the verge of turning the machine off, once the last batch of pics have uploaded to Flickr for mum, and the emails, which I had done so well to clear from 122 to zero, have started to flow in again. My feed reader has, for the past week, had trouble falling below 3000 articles and posts to read as the ebb and flow of people's publishing habits is thrown into disarray (mostly US or New Zealand/Australasia in the morning and evening, giving me the day to catch up). Four people had sent me "urgent - before close of business emails" on their Fridays, when, for me, I was a couple of hours away from my Saturday morning.
When the world is upside down, so, it would seem, am I.
All these bits, which most people don't even have in their lives, form an essential part of who I am at the moment, and give me the time and tools to think about where I think things might be going. They allow me to train, teach and take part in some cool collaborations. Unfortunately, when these things start to slip so, too, it feels, does my slightly precarious existence in this world of flux.
I'm loving New Zealand, and part of us all doesn't really want to go back for another 30 hours of flying home, but I think I might be glad to be hitting my own little sense of 'normality' next week. Digital holidaymaker? Hmm. Maybe I'm one, of a different ilk, but for the moment a holidaymaker nonetheless.
Appreciate the photos, Ewan! Take a look at your 3rd line of this post...;-)
Posted by: chris | October 08, 2007 at 12:38 PM