The World According To Me

• Work 40-50 hours in a pretty intense job;
• Involve myself in university study for 7 contact hours per week, and supposedly 2 or 3 times that of my own study (Pppphh);
• Supply my dog with constant attention and long daily periods of exercise otherwise she destroys stuff and/or runs away;
• Sustain and develop my relationship with my partner;
• Cook nightly meals every single night, and keep a very old and very big clinker-brick house clean/in some sort of order;
• Maintain a relationship with my family;
• Maintain my friendships.

So lets break this down on a daily basis;

Work - 9.5 hours;

Study - 4 hours;

Lucy-time - 1 hour walking. Half an hour cuddles and pats and one-sided conversations in baby tones.

Pom-time - ideally 3 hours to talk about our days, maybe do something social outside of the house and have our sooky time.

Cooking & Housework - 2 hours;

Maintaining Family relationships - Half an hour each day to catch up on the phone, write my Gran the letters she dearly loves and play the Big Sister to my younger sisters.

Maintain my friendships - I suppose if you average a night out over a week then we could safely say this was an hour a day.

So lets add this up;

9.5 + 4 + 1.5 + 3 + 2 + .5 + 1 = 21.5

So, if I'm to do all the things I need to do, not including allowing time for showering, getting dressed, brushing teeth, smoking, drinking coffee, driving to work, eating, looking for matching socks, tearing the knots out of my hair, doing wees, watching television or staring vacantly into space I have approximately 2.5 hours in which to sleep and recharge before starting all over again.

Something's gotta give.

At the moment it's my friends, study and housework which are losing out, all of which I'm sad about (maybe not so sad about the housework, but I can't remember the last time I saw the bottom of my ironing basket).

I thought to myself - maybe I need an outlet?

An outlet, yes.

Now let me see what I could do to vent my stress at the end of a long day;

Drinking? No, I hate hangovers too much and I lose my tact as soon as a glass of champagne has passed my lips. I used to live for weekends of partying, and now I can't bear the thought of wasting entire days feeling crap.

Drugs? Well, not anymore. It's too hard to find a dealer around here. Plus, it's illegal and stuff.

Illegal = bad, kids.

Life of Crime? It's on the 'maybe' list.

Salsa Dancing? Now, I've always wanted to learn some sort of dancing as the best I can do is a shameless bump & grind when I've had a skinful. (Just add shame in the morning when recalling). The thing that's stopped me from ever dabbling in anything resembling a dance class is the fact that no matter how many episodes of Dancing with the Stars I watch, I never see the girls wearing flat dancing shoes. So put a decent pair of heels on Kymmy and I'd be taller than the bloke I was dancing with. Cringe.

Some form of team sport? Well yes, I already play social netball, and this allows me to vent aggression in the most primal of manners. An elbow here, an elbow there, it's all good. It's only 40 minutes a week though and I've got much more crankypants goodness to dispense of.

And that's where I run out of ideas. Audience participation below, if you choose.

# posted by Kymmy : 2:30 pm