Life, paris, travel

Monday’s homework

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 It’s 3 am. I made myself an herbal tea to unwind and maybe succeed to sleep. It is one week that I am back to Paris and I have been running around like a headless chicken since then. Too many things to do. This is actually supposed to be my “vacation”. I have taken vacation to work on other things — to wrap up my move and work on delayed papers. Things pile up and I am unable to sort out the mess.

On the top of it all, we have to finish a second paper by the end of the month. My friend/colleague is the self-proclaimed leader to direct the preparation of the paper. He sent me an email with the title: “Homework for Monday”. Monday! This coming Monday when I will be basking in the sun in the south of France. I wanted to cry. Then I open the email and in the email body he had detailed all that I have to do item by item. No escaping from him I guess, I have to manage my time. I need a personal manager, a discipliner, a coach.

I wonder if I wouldn’t be better off, had I stayed in Strasbourg. My return already was very unwelcoming. As I always do after a long absence, as soon as I entered my apartment, I went to the kitchen to check on my plants. What a nightmare … My aunt, who was in charge of watering them, had literally drowned them in water. She later told me: “You don’t know what a heat wave attacked Paris”! I realised that she had imagined things and watered my plants to death. Talk about joy of ageing! One problem was solved though, I no longer had to think about how to move my african violets to Strasbourg. They all went into the garbage bin.

The rest of the week has passed by packing my stuff in boxes. Originally I thought that I won’t have much to take with me. But then again, I live with my belongings. I am not a minimalist. So I packed and I packed. Every now and then I was measuring the total volume to make sure I was within the allowed quota. Today the movers came and took everything in less than 30 minutes. I shipped with them few of my plants that were still alive. One of the movers reassured me that they will water them while they keep them in the storage. I hope they will do a better job than my aunt.

Besides packing, I have been back to my old workplace few times. Question of adapting to the idea of being gone. I entered my office to find the tall blond Dutch guy sitting behind my desk. My ex-desk I mean! Surprisingly I had no feeling of sadness nor nostalgia. The past had become way passed within less than two months. I was happy to realise that. At least as far as furniture goes …

Tomorrow is my last day before I join the Mediterranean sea. I look forward to this coming week. One whole week of not thinking about organising something, not being in rush to get somewhere, not to worry about some news or lack of it. One whole week of sun and sea, even if it means I have some homework to do.

In the end we don’t need much to feel happy.