Christmas break antics

After a 3 week break, I am ready to get back to work. It was very therapeutic to have that much time off but I must admit I feel resentful for having to work a few hours a day anyway just to keep on top of my emails. It has been tedious but I much rather do that than having to come back and face a mountain of emails, not to mention that while I stop, my clients don't, so I can't ever really be completely off the grid.

Even so, not having to wake up at a certain time, dress up, and venture into the city, makes a hell of a difference. While I haven't been sleeping till crazy hours every morning (I try to get up before 9 am), the freedom is refreshing. I guess there is no reason why I can't extend myself some more freedom even when I am not on holidays if my work ethic would permit me to do so.

Given that Sam has been working since 3 January 2017, I find myself spending tons of time alone. I did plan to get in touch with a number of people but that never happened. Maybe my inner-introvert has been at work.

To sum up every day during my break turns out to be quite similar. Here is a pictorial diary of what I have been doing:

Birthday

My birthday was a small and private affair. It was a public holiday, so Sam and I went to his mum's place for lunch, before we had dinner together at Asana in the city. Sam bought me a couple of things I needed, after much nagging from him for me to give him gift ideas. It was really hard, to be honest, since I just buy what I want if there is something I want these days.




Anyway, it wasn't exactly like spending my birthday in Europe but it was nice enough.

Lunch

Naturally, I went down to Wilde Kitchen for lunch on many occasions but given that we have been going through a heatwave, I did find a few more air conditioned places nearby and ventured there instead.

Also, Wilde Kitchen seems to continue to drop in standards - the choice of dishes continues to dwindle and the inconsistencies are getting worse. If I order a dish one day and order the same one the next, they could look completely different with different quantity of ingredients. That is so not the way to run a business.

Unfortunately, the reality for me is that there aren't that many places I could go while I am on the paleo diet. Having said that, if these guys don't get their act together, I might be forced to find somewhere else if they couldn't sustain their business at some stage. Let's hope it doesn't get to that!

Meanwhile, while I did find a few air conditioned places, it was admittedly not easy to find stuff I could eat there. I made do but I was definitely more for the air conditioning than the food there.



Travel planning

We had Ryan and Jake at our place one weekend to start planning our American trip next Christmas. We managed to plot our itinerary - we will be landing in New York, going down to Philadelphia and Washington DC, then driving up to Niagara Falls, Toronto, Montreal, then back to Boston in the USA, before getting back to New York for our departure.

We tried booking a couple of AirBNB places but both came back and said we booked too early and cancelled our reservations. Looks like we will have to wait a bit more before we could bed some of the accommodation down, which is fine because we have to do the same with the plane tickets anyway.

Shopping

I am shocking when I have free time - I tend to do research and buy stuff online. I also went to a few physical shops to pick up a few things but online shopping is my favourite.



My best purchase was this pewter Selangor R2D2, which was about $100 less online! The downside is that now that I have this, I want the Death Star one as well! I get a funny feeling that I will end up getting that as well. :P

Movie nights

Despite being on holidays, I still went to movie nights with the guys, albeit I only went into the city once and organised the next one at New Farm.



We saw Passengers and Collateral Beauty. I loved both movies, although the guys didn't really like the latter.

We also tried a Yakotori restaurant at New Farm for the first time. It was okay but nothing to write home about as far as I was concerned.

Birthday party

We were invited to attend one of my clients' surprise birthday party. The downside was that it was very hot and humid, even though we were in air conditioning the whole time.

Also, it was a bit awkward because we didn't know many people there. Even so, we had a great time in the end and felt honoured to have been invited. I did dread going but like most things, I was fine once we got there. 

So that was pretty much it. Apart from cleaning up the linen cupboard and a few other drawers and cabinets (which was very therapeutic indeed!), I didn't do much. The trouble with a break like this is that it is not long enough to pick up big projects like the books I started years ago and haven't been able to finish.

I am actually not due to get back to work on Thursday (today is Tuesday) but Dale and I want to go out this coming Sunday, so I want to take Monday off and go in tomorrow instead. I haven't told anyone, so it's going to be a surprise. Theoretically, since I have been working during my break anyway, I don't really have to go in tomorrow if I choose not to but I also want to set an example for my team, so I am all set to go in tomorrow now. 

The only job I have to do now is ironing - I will get onto it at about 5 pm.

All in all, it was good to have a long break like this. The stuff that seemed too much to do before Christmas now seems quite achievable.