I don’t know about you but there are days when I talk to myself. No, I’m not losing the plot. I’m keeping myself in check simply because I don’t want to lose sight of what’s important and I don’t want to get too big for my shoes either.
I believe it is very important to be in touch and keep in touch with one’s self at all levels. Mind, body and soul because when you have that, you are strong and can handle the daily life tests that come your way. Lately, I have been doing a lot of late night work and reading, and in the process, my body has become accustomed to it. This has been going on for 15 years. It is a habit I picked up when I was in boarding school because I wanted to do well. So, I stayed up late or woke up at night to study. Then it worked and now it still works. It helped me greatly while at university. University was a very challenging period for me because I went back as a matured student after almost 10 years of being out of the education system. Basically, I was in and out, but for 4 years I was out of it due to medical reasons. So, I had a lot of catching up to do when I finally went back fulltime. In fact when I went back to university, my social worker back then asked me if I was crazy? I said No. The university counselling team when they realised that I had been through a major life changing surgical procedure, advised I go part-time, I said NO. Yes, I can be that stubborn when my mind is made up. There were semesters when I spent more time at the hospital than I did in the lecture hall but I didn’t let that bother me. I went to university with the aim of finishing with a first class. For me, it would make the fact that I had fought so many battles to stay alive worth it. However, I got a 2:1…my mum was very pleased and my mentors were happy for me and pleased with me because they knew it was not easy. But as always, I was upset, saying I knew what cost me a first. But that doesn’t matter now. First class or no first class, I finished and I finshed well.
However, this is where I am leading to, university was physically very hard. So, sometimes I would sleep off in class and people would laugh at me and make fun. It was okay. I knew why I was there but I also had a weapon to help me. I could wake up at night to study and that came in so handy. It helped me get through university. Staying up to get my work done was my secret weapon. Once it was 11pm/12am, my eyes opened like it was morning. I would become so alert. It was like I was back in boarding school. I can’t explain it to anyone but that’s how it was and it is still like that. It also helped me when I was working at the BBC Worldservice and had to do night or early shifts. For some reason, I liked the night shift, don’t ask, maybe its because they gave us tea and biscuits.
It has served me well but now, I want my body clock to get back to some form of normality, my head hurts sometimes when I go a few days like this of late because when its morning, I still can’t switch off until about 11am. It’s like doing a 12 hours shift. So, today I was talking to myself about where we go from here. Yes, there will be days when I need to stay up and do some work, especially now that I am thinking to go back for a Masters degree. When we get there, we will cross that bridge. Right now is what matters. This is affecting other things, my time keeping sucks like sh*t at the moment. I have missed a few hospital appointments because I just slept and slept when I was supposed to be up. That’s not good. Balance is missing and I’m very big on keeping things in check.
So, I’m setting myself the goal of re-planning my month to the way I normally go about it. I am going to take a look at what I need to do for the rest of the month and Febuary, and plan accordingly. I also need to write a few goals on this matter. What I will stay up for and what I won’t stay up for. I need to watch the coffee drinking which ideally is not good for me. So in talking to myself, the aim is to take better care of Belinda. Don’t get me wrong, I take really good care of myself, watch what I eat, drink among others. However, this good tactical work weapon is beginning to feel wrong and that must change. Time to take care of mind, body and soul. This blog entry is very personal for me but I learnt a while back that, when you openly acknowledge a challenge or problem, you have overcome the biggest hurdle to getting it resolved. You find it, face it and finish it and that is what I’m doing. This blog is going to serve as my reminder and promise to myself to sleep and let work take care of itself sometimes. So, I’m off to sleep.
Have a great weekend. I look forward to blogging with some interesting interviews and a short story for next week.
Ciao!
PS: Any typos will be corrected later, right now, off to sleep.
