Are you excited yet? Not yet.... I just want to get on that plane first!

I don't know how many people have asked me this question in the last 2 weeks but to be honest, although I can't wait to get stuck in the project, I'm too busy to think about how I feel except that lonely feeling of exhaustion. You know that feeling when you have too many things to do today, tomorrow's to do list is no longer important? I haven't felt stressfully exhausted now as I have since my dissertation deadline..... I am frazzled.




I just finished packing and I want to go to sleep but I have to sort things out with my flights, with flatmates moving in and others out, making arrangements for while I'm away from my 2 jobs for 7/8 weeks, and preparing for work tomorrow. There's no time to think, never mind to think about how I feel. It's only time for action, and it's relentless. Like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, I find myself stuck in a heightened state of urgency at risk of being very very late. Unlike the white rabbit, however, I am well organised and forward planning so despite the stress, I've strangely found this part of my journey a lot less stressful than expected.




Don't misunderstand, I am stressed, but the knots in my neck have only started to irritate in the last few days rather than the last 2 weeks as anticipated. When I'm on that plane, I will be excited because I won't be in the thick of this unrelenting work, study, social, family schedule in Edinburgh where I have so much happening for me already...... now the thought of having nothing to do but watch films, sleep and read in peace high up in the sky where no-one can make demands on my energy or time, is what's making me excited! But then I'll be ready for a change after a day of tortoising it and primed to face the Community Development challenge waiting on arrival on Monday. I get on the plane at Heathrow 1615 on Friday 28th August and arrive 525 on the Sunday 30th in Auckland, remembering the time difference, of course. (The longest I've spent on a plane is 11 hours to Hong Kong....long-haul travel is a topic worth a post of it's own.... as is jet-lag... anyone got any tips for surviving either?)