A day in the life

I saw on my friend Lisa’s blog that she had posted “A Day in the Life of Lisa”. I thought this was a cool concept and thought I’d give it a try. If you’re reading this, it means that I decided it was worth posting and not just scrapping. So, here goes my day:

7:00 AM – I’m up. I don’t know why I wake up at 7 whether I’m working or not, but I do. As per usual, I start my day by scanning emails and reading the important news of the day (ie the hockey preview section on tsn.ca. Looks like my beloved Canadiens are considered a strong contender this year. Too bad Sudanese broadcasters can’t spell hockey, let alone broadcast it) BTW, am I the only one who gets excited to get email, and then disappointed when I discover that most of it is spam? I guess this is the modern equivalent of expecting a letter from a friend to come in the mail, and having to wade through weeks of flyers and hydro bills and past due notices for your cable bill. (I just had a sudden flashback to university when one of my idiot roommates didn’t pay the cable bill and it was cut off during exams, causing my other roommate great anguish as he scrambled to find another way to procrastinate). Maybe I shouldn’t write this before I’m fully awake. But then any of you who knows me well knows that this is how I think.

8 AM – finish reading the headlines, and decide to finish writing my vacation stories blog (which you’ll find underneath this one, I presume). Start to get hungry for breakfast, but decide to hold off until my guests (friends who work in rural Sudan and have come to the city for a break) wake up.

9:20 – realize I’m getting more hungry, and decide to start my new morning routine. 4 days running of the rowing machine, followed by some stretching and strengthening exercises for my back and knee which had been bothering me a bit lately after intense squash games. Let’s hope I can keep this up.

9:50 – finished cleaning up. Have just enough time to grab a quick breakfast before heading off to church (since Friday is the Muslim prayer day, it is also my day off and thus is the day I go to church)

10:35 – arrive at church 5 minutes late for worship practice. Surprised to discover that others are showing up on time now, and slink into position behind the microphone. For those that don’t know, I have been singing as part of the worship team now, and have been teaching them a few new songs on guitar during our practices. It is quite fun!

11:50 – I got word during the pre service that the speaker today is known for his longwindedness, so I decide to make a run for it, since it’s 45 degrees outside and the church is not always well cooled. I justify it by saying that I have to get caught up on work, despite the fact that I have to get caught up on work mainly because I haven’t gotten much done in the last couple of days (which I justified by the fact that the rest of Sudan, including everyone else on my staff, was on holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan. I, however, had grand plans of using this time to get caught up on work that piled up while I was away on vacation.)

12:10 – get home and have some leftover peanut chicken for lunch that Chris and Bev made the other night. The night before that, I made them a teriyaki stirfry. I love having guests around. Cooking is so much more fun, and I eat better and healthier.

12:30 – contemplate going up to the office. Decide to pause to update this journal, and remember that I was having trouble transferring music to my mp3 player. Decide to investigate this.

2:00 – finally made it to the office. I discovered that some of my music discs are scratched and don’t play properly. No matter. I have thousands more songs. While I was trying to load my mp3 player, I decided to watch an episode of Spin City to kill time. Time for serious work now though.

4:00 – well, that’s enough work for my day off. Looks like I’ll have to put in some time tomorrow though. Gonna catch another episode of Spin City, and then head off to squash.

4:30 – on my way out to run some errands when I ran into Tim online, a friend who is getting married next year. It’s sad to miss weddings, but it’s not cost feasible to make it back to Canada all the time. We’ll see what I can work out.

5:15 – ran out of time for the errands. Head to squash with Edwin. The squash game wasn’t all that great. We had a good game on Wednesday, but both ended up a little stiff and sore today. Still good fun.

7:00 - had some more peanut chicken for dinner. Got to use up the leftovers. Ran into Mike and Leah (two fellow African travellers that I met in a mission prep course in Canada before I went to Malawi) on line and chatted for a bit. It’s fun to keep in touch with fellow travellers.

8:30 - Decided to put on a movie, and watched The Bucket List. I really enjoyed this movie. Two all time great actors, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, tell a great tale of two guys who just found out that they have less than a year to live, and decide to live out some life long dreams. A lovely little film.

10:00 – Chris and Bev (my visitors and houseguests) come back and ask if I want to watch a movie. I figured I might as well (Chris makes great popcorn), but didn’t want another heavy drama, so we settled on some really light, cheesy 80s romantic comedy called “Can’t Buy Me Love”. Totally cheesy and sappy; fun for the whole family.

And there you have it. A day in my life, that strangely managed to cover much of my Sudan experience. Hope you liked it!