When you break your life down in number of days, and then write the happenings of those 24 hours a lot of things become clear. No.1 is that you are left with no illusions about what you are doing the whole day - your actions are there in black and white staring you back from the computer screen. We all envision a 'life' that we want and desire, but do we at the end of the day have that life? Now, that I write down my mundane life in jolts and starts, I come to the realization, that though not perfect, my days have a certain continuity, a rhythm, a kind of solace and peace in them. There are no urgencies that need to be addressed on an asap level, there are no snags that put a stone on my chest the minute I wake up, there are no dark thoughts that cripple me into a state of inaction for the whole day. I feel my life is coming together after the longest time and I am gathering myself after what seems like ages.
The day starts early, I normally wake up around between 5 and 6 in the morning and say my prayers, that is quiet and peaceful time and perfect for reading or writing. After Musti goes off to school, I go back to sleep for an hour and then get ready for work. Working in a hospital isn't the easiest of jobs, but then I guess no job is easy. The hospital is to be run like a well-oiled machine, like a hotel if you will, and at all times it must come up to the requirements of its patients. What I encounter at work are old set habits that refuse to be changed, a certain mind-set which can't be broken into, a kind of resignation to the way things are and a constant wailing of how things can change but never do. We as a people are not very industrious, and the hard working amongst us get the flak, and the lazy ones just get away with it.
My aim is to make an example of this place, turn it around completely within the next couple of years and from the 70's take a leap into the working patterns of the 21st century - well that's the plan.
I got the visa forms for UK, ufff, the bloody thing is as thick as a book! anyway don't have a choice because I'm dying to travel this summer. The best thing about my days now are that stationing myself at home I am able to monitor Musti to the best possible extent, he is so easily distracted, and needs total supervision when it comes to his studies and even his life, I've come to the conclusion, that though he tries to act all independent and macho, he is neither and is still not ready to be left on his own. So come 6 in the evening and we both sit together to study and to be honest he has surprised me! he hasn't frustrated me one time! well almost! he does his work as told and doesn't argue (well, not as much! I wonder where he has gotten this constant habit of arguing from? whatever you tell him, his reaction is a no! and I absolutely hate that, but what to do? half the time I control myself, and the other half? I just lose it :)
I am still reading The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, it isn't an easy read, that one, it is full of Christian history, the turmoil within sects and orders, the heresies, the fight between the different Emperors and the Popes and so on. It is erudite as well, the book I mean, it has massive allusions to different Latin, Greek and Arab texts, it talks of the ways knowledge was kept out of the domain of the simple by use of crypts and codes, it talks of the stringent life of the monks of the Benedictine Order, but also of their wealth, their political influence and their love of power.
This evening I was going through the website of Goodreads and trying to make a mental list of all the books that I have yet to read and sound interesting - well, mental list be damned now I can't remember much so tomorrow I would sit with a pencil and jot down the names. When would I be able to read so much? I wish I could finish a book a day, or less than in a day! I wish I had that kind of reading speed. My first job on the weekend is to get as many Umberto Eco books as I can find in the bookshop for I am smitten!
Got a blood test done, a detailed iron profile, for I feel so tried and lazy and exhausted all day long, the results won't be in till Monday so I have my fingers crossed.
I like the quiet of my room, the silence of the dark and lonely night, the chirping of the crickets, the odd rumble of an airplane overhead.... all is good and I hope remains so. After all the monotonous routine of my life isn't that different from that of Umberto's Monk - Adso in 1327?
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