Suffering through distraction

I am having a long hard day at work today. I woke up with a powerful strong congestion head ache. ...like a hangover without the expense of having to consume any alcohol.

And now having sufficiently defeated the headache with some revitalising fluids and fresh(-ish) air, the mindset of distraction still lingers.

I fear the inability to focus stems from stress in my personal life (which is worse than work stress because while at work, there is very little I can do personal-life-ly). all because...

The Germans are Here!

This is and should be a good thing.... right.... I should the shouting "Whatdya know! The friends I made in July last year, are here, in Johannesburg to visit!"

And! And! And I have the wonderful honour of hosting them at the regional campsite for a nice good old South African braai.

Good news right? so what's with the feelings of fear of stress? and trepidation?

...I....h...a...v...e....n...o....i...d...e...a...

(We won't go into the fact that I have to look people in the eye that I "forgot" to respond to emails from ... for 10 months - that complaint is done and dusted)

Catering for 20 people... Catering isn't easy - mostly its guess work as to how much to take and how much to provide. and this escaalates with numbers. Do 20 people eat 4 times more than 5 people or less? and is that all there is to the butterflies?

Maybe it's the whisper of the unknown - will tehy still like me? Will I be a good host? Will I remember the words? Will I meet nice people? Will I be South African enough? Will there be enough food? Will I be discovered to be a fraud?

I really really should not be this nervous. What's the worst that could really really happen?

I sadly have a classical typical stereotypical bad case of BMA (Big Match Anxiety) and nothings gonna solve it until I go and face my fears at 18:00 at the braai.

Feel a little like I am 8 years old standing next to the deep end of the swimming pool gearing up to shut my eyes, block my nose and bombdive right on in. It shouldn't be anything other than a pleasurable experience but often the 8 year old pauses at teh edge, cemented to the ground unable to leap just yet...

And so at the end of my story I realise that there goes the work day. Tomorrow I will try harder to be a better engineer.