Plans For An Indian Holiday

Today is a holiday in the whole of India. It is Republic Day -- though as a foreigner, I don't exactly know what it means. For me, it could be one of those days when I could lounge away watching movies after movies after movies, leaving bed only for necessary activites (eat, shit and piss, of course!!) and rocking myself to dream land sporadically. Best yet, because it is a Monday!

But... here I am facing the office computer trying to finish the 4M order. And truthfully, I hadn't slept at all last night! (I watched 6 movies non-stop from 8 pm onwards... this morning I started on season 2 of Californication).

I don't think it is a masochistic tendency. I just have to finish this and move on to other responsibilities before I leave for Brussels this Saturday. And just looking at the list of things I have to do (with big bold red letters labelled PRIORITY on most of them), I feel I just don't have enough time. Or probably the energy....

Worst -- I haven't packed yet. I know you'll probably say this dude is weird: he will leave days from now and he is talking about packing? Well, another psychiatric side of me is that I prepare my "wardrobe"days (some times weeks) before I leave. Like when I was in Myanmar, two months before I leave the project, I had already sorted, packed in nice folds all the shirts and jeans I want to bring back home. If there is a favorite shirt, I'd wash it (myself) 4 days beforehand and then pack day on the day I will leave. I think this is good because you (read: me in this context) tend to organize things and don't get frazzled by time constraints.

So anyway... these are my scattered projections for the day... Back to work!

Do you think the peripheral clinics will need more methyergometrine this quarter?

Wistful Working

There are so many reasons why I haven't written anything for the past few days.

Just after my birthday, we got entangled in this beautiful work called 12 M (basically it's a report for activities the past year and interpreting data -- to know whether we have achieved the indicators). It was a priority so we have to push aside other things, including blogging. After a while of looking at rows after rows of different parameters defining a project, I kind of got the beat and we finished 3 days before the deadline. What was gross were the layers of toilet paper used for blowing my nose. As you know, I had a super flu (which lasted for exactly 16 days) and had to bear through working in the clinics and waking up early in the morning listening to church songs. I even sounded funny in a Ray Charles sort of way. The difference is that I say mayodays instead of mayonaise.

The other thing which got me worked up was the evaluations. The hardest part of this job is to find one hundred and twenty ways to say "you suck at your job" without being so harsh and judgmental. So, I ended up saying things like: "scratching your balls when you don't have work is not productive.." Kidding. Truth is, I learned the art of asking subliminal (i don't know if that is the proper word) questions and have the staff answer me back positively. So I would ask: "what do you think you should do when you don't have data to enter?" And I got a response: "Buy paan (betel nut concoction) and go to the clinic". I didn't like the paan part, but he got into the clinic part, so that was okay --- a bit.

I also got to read ancient protocols and felt like Indiana Jones trying to decipher the reasons why it was written in the first place. Right now, I am trying to finish the ANC (ante-natal clinic) protocol, written three doctors ago.

And so it came to pass that on my 16th birthday, I got to do a lot of work. But I am in Delhi now so I get to do a bit of truancy....and of course, shopping.

Enough of this and now.... back to work!