Being organised

It's not all it's cracked up to be. I myself find that being completely disorganised and useless can be immensely frustrating but it gives you a lot to look back on. A few years back, for instance, I was going back home from university for the weekend and, knowing that British Rail was likely to let me down, I took the train before the one I should have. Turns out I should probably have left a few days earlier just to make sure I got to the airport on time. I missed the flight and, being an impulsive kind of guy, I just did the first thing that came into my head. That was to call my sister and ask what she thought I should do (error number 1) - she called the parents, reported that they said I should get a Eurostar (which apparently was completely false) and so I went down to London (error number 2), took the Circle Line in the wrong direction (error number 3), got my pocket picked and lost my phone (error number 4) and eventually arrived at Waterloo station at around midnight which was obviously far too late for the Eurostar (error number 5). Without these, I wouldn't be able to recount the story of that night I spent sleeping on a newspaper in a train station in London. It's a bit annoying at the time but I wouldn't change it for the world.

The latest incident came in Kaunas last weekend. The plan was simple :

1) Walk from the football stadium to the hostel
2) Sleep
3) Get up at 6.30
4) Go to the coach station
5) Get a bus to Riga and wander around there
6) Get on the plane and fly home.

1) and 2) were excuted flawlessly but then we were brutally taken down by that hideous tradition of putting the clocks forward 1 hour. Hence we innocently woke up at 7.30, missed the bus and had to take a 70€ taxi ride to Panevezys on the Vilnius-Riga highway and hope to get a bus from there. As it turned out, all went swimmingly and we got on the plane without any problems (bar spending too long over a beer and having to be called personally over the loudspeaker system and then taking a bus out to the plane when everyone else was already seated). This reminded me of that time back in 2004 when I tried to get onto a plane headed for my first African trip and lost my passport, boarding pass and yellow fever certificate, all within the space of about half an hour. The advantage with this kind of history is that when shit does happen, you're entirely prepared for it and very rarely let panic cloud your judgement, and I got all of them back from various places.

Once again, I've let horrendous time management get the better of me and I have the majority of my thesis to write in about 5 weekends before it's due to be handed in on May 11th. Consequently, I'm sat here in all serenity writing this. There are, admittedly, small voices in my head saying "maybe you should stop blogging and actually get on with it ?" but my level of experience speaks for itself - I did get back home for that weekend (albeit 17 hours late), I did get on that plane to Africa, and I did get back from Kaunas in perfect time. And this is why I am sure that, some way or another, I'll get my thesis completed on time too.

Yesterday I decided that, with my little expedition to the Middle East on Wednesday, maybe I should get a backpack after my last one sadly expired in January. So after a 20 minute shopping spree I emerged with a new travel buddy - it's black, it's big, and it cost me 135€. All I need to do now is get onto the plane...