Doing OK

Last weekend was a bit stressful. I spent most of it making, formatting and checking puzzles. And unlike a crossword or other word puzzle, these were basically grids full of numbers, à la Sudoku, and a lot less fun to make. On Sunday I went to Zealandia (the wildlife sanctuary) with a few other people from the anxiety group. It was the Wellington Open Day so instead of the usual exorbitant entry fee it only cost $2 to get in. That of course meant that every man and his dog made their way there (road works around the Karori tunnel didn't help matters) and a lot of the animal life sensibly decided to hide. One of the guys in our group was a big help with his knowledge of flora and fauna. It was nice to get out and get some human contact but really my mind was elsewhere.

I just had my latest mini-appraisal at work. I'm doing a bit better than I thought. When I think about it, I take more pride in my work than I did when I was getting paid twice as much (it's hard to take much pride in your work when you don't know what you're doing). I'm also much more aware of what my colleagues are doing (in my old role I rarely had a clue) so I'm able to prioritise a lot better. Although I'm generally doing OK, I know that OK is as good as things will ever get for me in this kind of work environment. I'll admit that today my eyes did glaze over at times when my boss showed me a new task. It probably didn't help that he made extensive use of the words "liaise", "deploy", "utilise" and "populate".

I spoke to my parents on the phone last night. I'm flying down to Timaru on 20th June to spend a few days with them. Dad has an exhibition in the UK starting very soon. It's a shame he can't be there for it. Dad won the singles competition at the indoor bowls club on Tuesday night, beating Mum in one of his games. He gets a trophy for his efforts and now has to play off against other club champions in some regional competition. Who knows, maybe he'll get a call-up to the national team; I think they're called the Black Mats or Mat Blacks or something. It's all quite amusing because, from what I can tell, he can't stand the game.