No rest for the wicked

I really was very tired last night. Today was not restful.

As is typical of music students in their final year of studies, I am somewhat overcommitted at the moment. My teaching schedule is light at about nine hours per week but the associated travel is somewhat tiring. I have been spending quite a lot of time on my academic work of late, often fifty or sixty hours per week, but this has not been enough to prevent me getting to the uncomfortably familiar place I now inhabit: that of having an assignment due tomorrow, with at least four hours (and probably closer to eight or twelve, if I'm honest) of solid work ahead of me, when my body is absolutely crying out for sleep; this is way beyond the point where caffeine is useful. I have some other things I need to do tonight as well, and I can only wiggle out of some of them. Tomorrow is going to be long, Friday is very full, and next week (which had looked relatively clear) is taking form with a rather punishing schedule. I'm not as young as I was (though that would be a good trick, eh?) and I do have some medical problems; I am already paying, with physical pain, for the wonky work:rest ratio of the past few weeks. And of course that makes it harder to concentrate and get the work done, and here I am writing about it here instead of, er, getting the work done.

Yesterday I found out, yet again, that love is stronger than fear. It's a powerful lesson and yet one that I seem to need to keep repeating. I'm not sure what I'm learning tonight, but if you can think of anything that's stronger than exhaustion, do let me know.

I already know what's stronger than the pain, at least on a temporary basis: it comes in the form of little white tablets and costs 36p for eight doses from the chemist and it keeps the ouch levels down at 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.I want to stay off the prescription-grade painkillers, the pharmaceutical kabbalah, until I'm 40, and so far I've been successful.

So in my prayers tonight I thank God for the mercy that ibuprofen brings, and for the fact that I don't yet need anything stronger. And I thank God that the greatest of my immediate worries is not whether I will survive the night, not whether I will have a roof over my head or food to eat this time next week, not whether my close family are in any grave peril, but that I'd really rather like to get my work done and make a good job of it and I'm not sure if I have the physical endurance to do it.

This made me smile.