A Professional by definition is a person engaged or
qualified in a profession. This person has worked to be called a professional.
He has worked to hone his skills which qualify him for the job.
A professional person gets up every morning has a schedule
to fulfill. He has places to be, he has tasks to complete. The direction for
his day is decided by the amount of work he has to do; the meetings he has to
attend; the deadlines he has to achieve. The professional longs for the
weekends, he longs for vacations. He longs for the time when he can “smell the
roses”.
But when the same professional gets his wish, of being able
to smell the roses, what really happens. Is this a boon?
Well, I have been working for the entire stretch of my adult
life. I enjoyed the work, but I definitely complained more than once during the
working life that I never got a break. That I was working for too long, I was
always busy. That I wish I could wake up late, while away all my time doing
nothing. That I could walk around the streets during the day soaking in the
sun.
So as luck would have it, I did finally get a chance to go
on a sort of sabbatical for an indefinite period of time. I was excited. For me
this meant late mornings, gourmet breakfasts, lazy lunches, afternoon siestas,
long walks, reading up on my technical knowledge, figuring out an alternate
profession, writing a-blog-a-day!
Well all sounded wonderful, and I approached my impending
“vacation” with all vigor. But it took me less than a fortnight to realize that
the work life has spoiled me!! So here is a list of things I – a professional –
did on my “vacation”.
- Early
mornings!!! This turned out as the biggest surprise. I have always loved
my sleep, and I had thought that while on leave I would catch up on the
sleep which I lost while studying and working. But as it turned out, I had
this severe urge to wake up every morning and just sit around while my
husband got ready to head off for work. He never insisted, for whatever
reason I felt like seeing him off!!
- Cereals!
Coming from a family of people who love to cook and getting married to
someone who is the same, I always gave an excuse for my disinterest in the
kitchen by saying that I never got the time to learn. But now, when I did
have the time, I convinced myself that I am going to be home alone, how
does it matter what I cook. I will stick to cereals! Goodbye gourmet
breakfasts!
- Doing
absolutely nothing! Well this consisted as the biggest activity of my day.
There were times when I realized that I haven’t moved from a single spot
since hours. While being motionless didn't bother me, the guilt of wasting
my day doing nothing did.
- Honing
my OCD!! Well I do have this incessant need of keeping things clean. But
the vacation gave me ample time to make sure I cleaned a surface at least
50 times a day!
- Walking
in circles – This one is not all that bad. When I started I had thought
that I will walk around exploring the area. However, my home was
surrounded by the expressways on both sides. So I had to make do by
walking around the block. Was a good exercise though.
- Re-runs!
Well this is nothing to do with the walking. Basically television never
interested me. But I really dint have to worry about that since all the
time I got to watch television was 3 hours maximum. But since now I had
all the time in the world, I did not enrich my television knowledge and I
stuck to watching the re-runs of my favorite sitcoms!
- Gossip-mongering.
Going by my decision of reading up on my favorite topics and writing
numerous blogs on the knowledge I collected. However, every time I
ventured on the World Wide Web, I landed up reading up about the lives of
the celebrities. Sad! I know! But that’s what became as a big habit. Sad!
- Cursing
the husband. Now the poor guy is working to his limit. I am more than
happy to be here for him. But the frustration of sitting home alone, I
unfortunately always took it out on him. My punching bag! Awww!
- Cursing
the government. Well this is again a valid thing to do. I was told on the
website, that I would get my work permit (yep life is definitely centered on
work) soon – within 90 days. But it did not. For some reason the
government slowed down the processing and hence were directly responsible
for my sour mood.
- F5.
All day long, refreshing the page of the status of my work permit was the
most important thing to do. God forbid that I don’t see change of status
as soon as they (the government) post it. But desperation makes you do
funny things!
My vacation did land up being quite different to what I
imagined. But all the same, it has been a learning experience.
