In Reality, Only A Quarter Of The Day Has Been Wasted

None of the following is intended to go against the spirit of sunny exuberance I was going for in the previous post. Indeed, I am so excited to be back in Australia that I apparently can no longer sleep. In contrast to my usual slothful ways, I launch myself out of bed at six AM on the dot with the feeling that half the day has already been wasted, despite having only dozed off three hours beforehand. Jetlag is not my favorite thing in the world, and - being ruled by my desire for sleep at the best of times - I'm incredibly bad at dealing with it. Five hours of lucid awareness in the middle of the night is not an appropriate trade-off for the same length of time measured in helpless, drooling afternoon power-naps in my office. ("For I have seen the mornings, evenings, afternoons... I have measured out my life with helpless, drooling power-naps...")

To make all this even more impressive, it turns out that twenty hours on a plane exposes you to all sorts of interesting microorganisms. Having survived a month of northern-hemisphere winter, I am now staggering around in the bright sunshine coughing, hacking, and sneezing so hard that mucus flies out of my ears. The smallest interaction in a coffee shop or bar is constantly at risk of turning into an out-take from Ghostbusters 2. This week, it has to be said, I am not exactly in championship form.