Permission to Rest

image from fffound.com

I have a Man Cold. It started as a scratchy throat and escalated last night into intense nausea, stomach cramps, achy wrists, and a blocked nose. I was up for most of the second half of the night, breathing like Darth (why did he have to die?), telling dark shapes that I have changed my mind about England: it is too epidemic-friendly (half of Oxfordshire has a cold, the other half look like they have had one) to remain a serious contender as the location for my nest. I am in the country (population: 100) and the little beast still managed to track me down and pounce on me, cunningly taking advantage of my post-conference fatigue. I simply get ill more often in this part of the world. I would say I am on about two colds and one random icky bug/year. It may very well be the thesis (and student lifestyle) making me constantly vulnerable, but I think it has a lot to do with having to touch people here, having to share all sorts of things. There's almost always at least a metre between people in Australia - we respect dance space.

I am less concerned with my nest and dance space right now, and more with my thesis timetable (and my supervisor's expectations). I am in that awful situation where I have 10 000 words to edit, but very little energy to concentrate, let alone feel positive about it. I have given myself permission to do 3 solid hours only and spend the rest of the day resting. I think that's a pretty fair deal, right?