Week off

I had grand plans for twenty-twenty travel. It was 90% planned out, Hawaii and India in the first quarter. Sydney for Easter, Singapore end of April, New Orleans and Texas for May, New York and Chicago in September, Seoul and Bali in October, Sydney for Christmas. The weekends were scheduled and the annual leave was approved. Then, somebody ate a bat and all plans for twenty twenty were dashed. 

When annual leave cannot be accrued, it changes the way you use it. I have taken the odd day off from work to recover from big nights, or to study for exams, but for as long as I can remember, blocks of annual leave have been reserved for overseas travel. I realise as I type this, this sounds like the ramblings of a privileged douche bag, however the point is not to talk about travel, but to describe the relationship I have with annual leave as an expat living abroad. Given the current circumstances, work has granted employees the ability to carry over 10 days of annual leave, which means all remaining leave must be used, so here I am taking an entire week off purely because it's a use it, or lose it policy. So here I am with one week of no work to spend in Hong Kong.

Initially my plan was to rest and recover from the ablation, that coupled with the fact I had a sprained ankle (this ankle sprain will come back and get me, see future post) and a shoulder impingement meant no real exercise. So I had decided to treat myself to alarm-clock-free mornings, catching up with friends and some home cooked meals. However, the reality of spending an entire week at home during Covid doing nothing dawned on me and I ended up trying to find things to keep myself productive. 

Here's where I eventually landed. 100 Hour Meditation and Pranayama Teacher's Training Course, twelve mornings, 9:30 am -12:30 pm, I have also signed up for two Coursera online courses: An Introduction to Psychology and Portfolio and Risk Management.