deadbeat

I've been feeling like a deadbeat person often these days. Tired so often I don't have much to give people after work; stressed and harried enough at work that I don't feel like I am doing my best or working on relationships.

Life can be such a vicious circle; the more stressful and troubled life becomes, the more it requires of you mentally and emotionally, and all the stress and trouble leaves you hapless; emotionally drained, mentally incapable.

Both Martin and I have had alot of job pressure lately; I think mostly because what we do is more than just a job; for both of us the motivation is more deep-seated. It's hard to have two people in a household worn out; emotionally thin. Thankfully we don't have kids right now. I can only imagine the added pressure. For myself much of my work pressure is the workload I build for myself; accepting projects, putting the responsibility on myself, being worker bee while self-managing. It's not a good place to be, because I think the only place it can lead is burnout.

But I do get to be involved in such cool work. To get an idea, check out a short CBC Report covering the return of Sudanese doctors to their homeland to set up medical practice. We became friends with a few of the doctors, and watching my friend Daniel see his father for the first time in 20 years is so awesome. I never imagined I'd get to witness it on camera.

I went through training this week for the trip I will be helping lead in December, and that was an interesting study in human behaviour. The group of leaders was divided 50-50: Half were new, half had done a trip before. I found it so interesting that even as adults humans gravitate to cliques, and social "cool" groups. There was a fair amount of insensitivity showed in the experienced leaders; they talked in a foreign language of inside information, inside jokes, and nonsensical references. Us new folk sat there, real quite like, trying to figure out what the heck people were talking about. I also found it very ironic. I grew a strong revulsion towards youth group as a young miss because of (among other things) the cliques and the exclusiveness of it all. Here I found myself training to be a trip leader and small group leader for youth, and it was like those youth group things all over again.

But - it was great training, and despite my massive headache during the day (which led me to hardly crack a smile, and therefore led my fellow leaders to think me a dull companion) I am energized to slog through the material and be as prepared as possible.

I leave this week for my very first trip to eastern Canada. It's quite sad; I've never been further east than Saskatchewan. I guess I am truly a born-and-bred Western Canadian. (That really is a demographic, too.) So I will get to check out a bit of Montreal this weekend between work engagements. Should be interesting. Hopefully I will get to do a bit of the tourist thing; I have had the desire to see Montreal for a while now.

Now, sleep for my tired head. More work tomorrow.