1750: Time Kompression

Once again, time has been proving itself to be somewhat fluid. I’ve only had a week off from work, but it feels like an eternity; it probably helps that I’ve done one hell of a lot of things in said week off — most notably going back and forth to Scotland, but also last night’s trip to London for Distant Worlds as well as a few other things — but this would seem to disprove the whole “time flies when you’re having fun” theory; I’ve certainly been having plenty of fun, but this week feels like it’s been an extremely long one.

I’m not complaining; it’s been nice to have what actually feels like a really long holiday when, in fact, I’ve only been away for a week. I feel quite rested and relaxed and, necessity of waking up at an ungodly hour for a commute that doesn’t suck all of the balls aside, pretty much ready to face the day tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll be back into the same old routine before long, but that’s not really a bad thing; routines are comfortable and familiar, and form the backbone to one’s existence. Routines mean that breaks like I’ve had this week feel all the more meaningful and enjoyable; times like this week are honest-to-goodness breaks when I don’t have to worry about anything and can just enjoy some legitimately completely free time.

This is something I never really got when I was working from home. Although most of the publications I worked for were perfectly happy for me to take a few days off here and there, it was sort of hard to justify doing so when I have a laptop and could work from literally anywhere there was an Internet connection. Indeed, on a number of occasions I found myself working hard well into the night when I should really have been relaxing and enjoying myself doing other things, but I was always keen to make a decent impression with the effort I made — that and, in the case of things I wrote regularly, such as my Japanese gaming column on USgamer, I didn’t want to let down my audience.

This is something I never really got when I was a teacher, either: you can’t just take a day (or week, or month) off here and there when you’re working as a teacher; you have to go by the holiday calendar the school follows. This makes things both restrictive and prohibitively expensive; school holidays are “primetime” season for travelling, tourist attractions and, indeed, pretty much everything, so the prices are jacked up accordingly. Not only that, it means that there’s just no letting up, even when you need a break for the sake of your health — mental, physical or both. Couple that with the guilt trip you get when you take a day off genuinely sick — you’re expected to provide a full day’s worth of lesson plans for cover teachers to use even if you’re on your deathbed — and the whole situation is just rather shitty all round.

So now I am pleased to enjoy my times of holiday, because they’re just that — time off. Nothing to worry about. No work I “should” be doing while I’m away; no “I’ll just check in on the office email”; no “I’ll just pen a quick article on that” — just rest and relaxation. Bliss.