Better Days

Not out of the woods yet with regard to events taking place in my lower back, but it looks like I may be able to avoid getting a jab to relax the muscles therein. I was delighted to find myself able to get myself moving and walking round the house upon waking this morning, having suspected I'd wake in the early hours to the kind of unbearable pain I suffered back in Madrid, and things have got better since then. It looks like something inside is mending.

I think the fact that this date is a particularly happy one in our domestic calendar has helped the healing process. Knowing that you've managed to get at least one thing right in your life casts a rosy glow on all its various aspects, even the painful ones.

Taking The Strain

Some more moaning today, I'm afraid. I've been increasingly aware as the week has gone on of warning signs suggesting trouble in my lower back. Today the signs emerged as full scale trouble - major back strain - and I only just made it through the five hours of rehearsal that constituted the middle of the day. But made it, I did, so there was relief in that.

The thing is, I'm so busy I can't afford to break down but it's being so busy that's at the root of the problem. I'm worried that the muscles affected are going to really go into spasm and I'm simply not going to be able to walk, as happened in Madrid at the back end of 2013. A jab from the doc should fix that, so it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it'll cause all sorts of hassle.

So I'm officially hoping that I can just grit my teeth and get through. If I make it to next Saturday a complete and glorious collapse will be unproblematic by then. Do wish me luck!

No Time

I seem to have been reading Pope's Essay on Man forever. Thought I'd finish it yonks ago, having made smooth progress to the final Epistle. Then things got ultra-busy at work and I stalled. I've still got about four pages to go and, astonishingly haven't been able to get moving on them despite a few attempts over the last weeks. Every time I get started something Toad-related crops up.

In my universe there's no question: May is the cruellest month.

(Just as a matter of interest our second term saw its conclusion today and I still face a very busy weekend and week ahead. Go figure.)

Both

Listened to some salutary words of warning with regard to the Internet today. Also listened to some distinctly celebratory words related to the great experiment of our age. All well worth listening to. And all of which I found myself in agreement with.

Sometimes you can't be either-or. Sometimes the only way to function is both-and.

Lots To Learn

Found myself at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies this morning as part of my 'professional development' and had a jolly good time being developed there. It was pleasant to be talked to as if I were a reasonably intelligent person for a change, rather than have to suffer through the usual cliched repetitions that somehow pass for what I am sometimes informed is my 'training'.

The ISEAS premises house a rather tasty little bookshop with quite a variety of their own publications appertaining to the research they've done in the region. And they have an excellent library with, at this time, an engaging display commemorating S. Rajaratnam, one of the founding fathers of the nation - and quite obviously the best read of them all. I say this because a number of the books he left to the library are on display (from an overall collection of over 5000) and it was highly enjoyable getting to look at what had once been on his shelves. Nothing pretentious, by the way, just an eclectic range of paperbacks of all sorts reflecting a man who had a genuine life of the mind and a sense of curiosity about just about everything you can be curious about. It was strangely easy to warm to him just looking at what he'd once loved getting stuck into. (Don't ask me how I know he loved those books, just take it from me I do.)

The visit in its entirety made me keenly aware of the scale of what I don't know about the region - which is more than plenty - and planted a desire to at least mildly alleviate some of that ignorance. A small but potentially significant development in itself.

Instability

I'm doing a talk this Thursday at a seminar on Language and the Media (or something like that) related to how words slip and slide and sort of crash around to change their meaning or produce new ones or do both at once. There's really only one point I intend to make, a takeaway for my poor audience, as they say nowadays in an apt example of language sliding all over the place, and that's to try and notice and enjoy the whole crazy process. It's a most rewarding part of the human comedy.

My intuition is that we're hard-wired to enjoy kicking words around and that it takes an awful lot of repression (in the form of what's generally termed 'education') to take that enjoyment away. So let's take it back, shall we? It's a birth right of a sort, after all, and, let's face it, a nice safe way to live dangerously.

Wonder if I'll manage to offend anyone?

Just Five Minutes

Pleased to report that the Missus and I have been keeping up the exercise regime. We don't have regular days set aside, but we've carved out a reasonable two or three sessions a week since starting at the beginning of March. Actually I suspect that Noi is a bit of natural at this sort of thing, although I don't think she realises it. She can take half an hour on the treadmill in her stride (pun intended) when I rather think it would be well beyond many of her contemporaries, and this despite her never really doing any 'sport' as an adult.

I'm fairly satisfied with my own progress - in fact, delighted I haven't suffered any kind of back injury so far. But I can't help but notice that the addition of an extra five minutes to my usual thirty of cardiovascular exertion feels like I'm doubling the standard amount. Gosh, five minutes seems like a very long time when you're running on empty, as I discovered to my chagrin yesterday evening. Now in recovery.

Migrants

Caught an excellent if bleakly depressing episode of Reporters on BBC World this afternoon dealing with the plight of the Rohingya, more specifically those Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar and setting out as migrants to find new lives in Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. It's obvious that these nations are not terribly welcoming and I hope I don't sound too cynical when I say it's not difficult to see why. And it's also obvious that there are plenty of ruthless traffickers in the region - as there are elsewhere in the world - who see a glorious opportunity to exploit. So no easy solutions in sight - though some pressure on those who are responsible for fostering the persecution of the minority in Burma itself might not come amiss.

The plight of those fleeing persecution, or just looking to make a better living somewhere else, looks set to be a familiar theme of this age of globalisation. As I suppose it has been through centuries one way or another. Lucky me, to have been a sort of migrant in a different sense, for whom the luck ran in history's wayward direction.

Anti Social

Popped down to Arab Street and environs after clearing my target for IB exam marking today. The Missus and I enjoyed two cups of tea in separate eateries and I spent a fruitful few minutes in the lovely Wardah Books which continues to offer a fascinating range of material, mainly, but not exclusively, Islamic - all thought-provoking. Somehow managed not to buy anything manifesting magnificent self-control. So why 'fruitful' you may ask? In respect to the happy engendering of ideas, I reply.

Then it was back to the ranch, to munch on the murtabak we picked up and to the cheerful sight of precisely no messages on my not-terribly-trusty non-smart old Nokia phone. Somehow the thought of no one feeling the need to disturb my weekend was immensely consoling. Not that it lasted - but what the heck, it was good while it did.

A Good Thing

I've fallen asleep twice today already, and will do so happily again in the next few minutes. This is an entirely good thing. And necessary. Trust me on this.