euphonies' embarrassments

Two lessons this past week were hard to learn. Both are actually biblical principles, and both I absolutely came short of .. maybe out of a lack of sleep:

Always be prepared, or never put off till tomorrow what you can do today / Coming back from Mulhouse, I had planned to clean up my flat, which was showing vivid signs of quite a few all-nighters, hurried dinners, rushed showers. Euphonies had been productive for a change, had used many of her hours of sleep to finish off the course project whilst working till very late on the preparation of awards for the company. My apartment was showing signs of neglect as I left for Germany over the weekend. I had been sick by the time the project was wrapped up and I left the house and I crashed when I got home from the drive on Sunday night. Come Monday, I couldn’t wait to get home early. I was hoping the workmen, who are on my balcony/terrace land area, would not have to walk through my room to get to their construction zone. Otherwise, they would find a student-housing situation with piled up dishes, clothes lying around, an un-made bed and the lot. I do not live this way and I do not like this to be the case, but on Sunday I preferred to sleep the full 6 hours before waking up. Bad move. Come Monday morning, my tornado-wanabee room had been shoved around by some suspicious third party. (I had this organized mess situation going on, where I could see what had been moved). The clean clothes and all the smalls had obviously fallen off the clothes stand and placed on top of it (cringe) and everything from my closet had been removed and left outside it. I knew what had happened before the house-keeper had to tell me, the owner had to check on a water leak. He picked the worst day. And I apparently did too. This was frightfully embarrassing. Never has my room been so untidy, and I still remember the owner complaining that the previous tenant had been a chaotic type, but “don’t you worry” he had told me, “I know you are different. And besides, I will never come into your place without letting you know first”. I phoned my owner up and let him know "I promise, I never live this way, why dont you try to surprise me again tomorrow" to which he simply responded: "you don't need to justify yourself. The way you live is your problem not mine". Oh man!

In everything, work hard at it as though you are working for God / In various tasks, including in the yearbook and a few client intended items at work, the lack of time has reflected in enormous errors, resulting in great embarrassment for a perfectionist such as myself. At times, I just have to learn to swallow my pride and just ask for help, ask for someone else to re-read the work, lest it get into the wrong hands, which it always does. I could have given both of the pieces of work a final read and saved myself the sense of failure. It is one thing to make a mistake in my blog (who cares) but yet another to produce work for a group, representing a group and mess up so badly and loose your credibility. If man were to die of embarrassment, I would have this week – even though not too much can embarrass me.

I tell you, I am learning a lot and fast here, especially with the constant sense of pressure to produce results – the basic bottom-line world at its best. The big chess game in which you are a mere pawn unless you fight. Some of the lessons do hurt. Paris-David, don’t get me wrong, I still wouldn’t swap my fast life for any other – no way! I need the adventure, don’t even long for more rest (and that is the very issue!). This learning curve can only make me stronger and so I can count the embarrassment all joy. In a way.