My week Monday 11 to Sunday 17 November 2013 was completely unproductive, for reasons which shall be explained in the next five paragraphs.
At the tail end of the previous week’s trip to Canberra, I changed my medication for depression — something that I’d discussed with my doctor beforehand, of course, but there were side effects nevertheless.
My sleep patterns took several days to readjust, and during that time I was more susceptible to the depression being exacerbated by the kind of arsehat events that the universe throws at us from time to time.
One such arsehat event happened. Or didn’t happen. A key invoice didn’t get paid when it was expected to be paid. Cashflow stress ensued, and that arsehat was the straw that broke the camel’s back, turning it into a black dog. Stay with me now, OK.
My mood wasn’t exactly improved by the fact that it rained for almost the entire week. There’s a strong seasonal aspect to my depression. And that rain was just a cruel twist, given that only the week before we’d been worried about everything being incinerated in bushfires.
This is a stupid planet, and humans are a stupid, badly-designed species.
I did catch up on a lot of reading, however.
Podcasts
None.
Articles
None.
Media Appearances
None.
Corporate Largesse
- On Tuesday, after I crowdsourced a few beers and ciders in Sydney because the aforementioned cashflow stress made the concept of paying for my own drinks problematic, I ended up being invited to dinner at Kobe Jones’ Wharf Teppanyaki at Sydney’s King Street Wharf, courtesy of Enex Testlab. There is evidence to suggest that I was provided with an ample sufficiency of sake.
The Week Ahead
Well it’s half finished already, innit. But it began on a positive note. The cashflow constipation was uncorked on Monday, so I could start living again.
On Tuesday I came down to Sydney to take lunch with the boss-blokes from Sophos, the British-American information security firm, and deal with a whole bunch of errands.
Wednesday was a day of resetting all the things.
Thursday — that is to say, today — I’ll be starting work on a 2000-word feature story for ZDNet Australia that has to be finished by the end of next week, as well as participating in a discussion which will Rearrange Certain Aspects of Reality. That will all become less cryptic in due course. Or not.
Friday is a day of writing, with columns for both ZDNet Australia and CSO Online, and over the weekend I’ll be writing something for Corrupted Nerds.
In fact, the next three weeks will be quite busy, because I have to generate some catch-up revenue to replace last week’s steaming pile of fail, as well as make sure there’s enough revenue coming in to cover the time of year that freelancers fear most: Christmas.
“Holidays” is a synonym for “poverty” rather than “tequila”. It’s enough to make Baby Jesus cry.
[Photo: Crossing the Nepean, 12 November 2013, a dark, moody image that seems to capture the depressing nature of the week.]
Evan Nepean gave his name to the Nepean River. He was in charge of the spies at the Home Office in the United Kingdom – one of whom was named Arthur Philip who took the “First Fleet” to Rio before heading for Sydney – named after Viscount Sydney – Evan’s boss !
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nepean-evan-2504
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Nepean
Bob