Worn out

I got to bed early last night, couldn't sleep, got up early and was in the office by eight this morning, able to concentrate on clearing work before the Christmas break. One risk of an early start is that you just end up working a longer day than usual, instead of making up for the early start with an early finish.

Fortunately, I left for home at 7:35 this evening. Oh. Come to think of it, that wasn't a shorter day than usual. It might even have been a bit longer.

I turned off my email for the morning though, which was a great help: normally there's a constant stream of distraction, but instead I could focus on some fairly complicated and involved tasks, until I checked my email after lunch and found four or five dread intimations of highly urgent work that had to be done this week. I suppose they must have been really, really important, as it's only the unimportant trivial stuff that people plan for in advance. Much more sensible if something is urgent to wait until 24 hours before you need it and then start panicking and flapping your arms.

Well, that's what I do, anyway. Flapping your arms and panicking may reduce your weight (as part of a calorie controlled diet).

Once I was out of the office, I realised that I'd spent an entire day in the office, without encountering anyone novel or different. I had been out for salad, but that's not the stuff of which dreams are made. Luckily, we still had our jetlagged friend to visit, so we bowled down to Tai Koo to have dinner, and skype his fiancee. We ended up all watching my entry from this year's Hong Kong comedy competition, which I felt a little self-aggrandising, and also a little scary. It's strange to watch yourself on video, and not be quite sure that the person performing is you, or that you could do these things. But give it a few months and this will fade away.

Anyway, drunk on Skol: another lager than the 1980s want back, and I drank enough of it to understand why they should have it. Another early start tomorrow, I think, another burst of Stakhanovite activity for me, and then whoosh, the year is done.