Start the clocks

I am in countdown to various things.

9 days until The Scottish Play Contemporary Rock Opera (stupid curse) goes on stage.
19 days until it's all over!
18 days until school holidays.
23 days until I go overseas.

9 days
In 9 days I will not have to do any more publicity, hopefully. In 9 days the pressure on me to identify media targets and send press releases and trawl theatre websites and fiddle with programs will be over. It will be replaced with having to man box office and schmooze and seat people, but this seems minimal. Besides, then I get to see the finished product of the show which, for all the whinging I do about the work and how disconnected I am from the performers, looks very exciting.

19 days
And in 19 days, even that stress will be gone. I will have been paid my scungy flat rate and, in an ideal world, we'll have made a profit and I'll get a cut of that. In an ideal world...

18 days
No more teaching. Nothing but sleep and organisation stretching between me and...

23 days
OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO EUROPE IN 3 WEEKS! This is exciting and terrifying. My last overseas trip was OK, but hey, New Zealand is practically an Aus suburb. And it was only two weeks. Indonesia was supposed to be long term, but ended up being around nine weeks worth. So this ten week trip will be my longest time overseas. And I'll be spending much of that time with Lisa, which is a big thing. We've lived together before, and even though we disagree, I think we get on quite well most of the time, and we generally are able to put differences behind us again and move on. So realistically I expect we'll not get on the whole time, but I am sure it will be fine. I love my friends, but I'm not sure I could travel with all of them. I think Lise is one of those I can.

Don't know if I've posted this, but have discovered I will be in London over the Easter weekend. I wasn't meant to be leaving before Easter. I'd set my departure date in my head as April 10, but then in trying to get flights to continental Europe, the travel agent and I had moved the date back and back and back. Then when we tried England, I really could have used my original date, but I'd ok'd the new date, forgetting why I'd set the 10th as my departure date anyway. So now I am going to be in England over a public holiday (a holiday which also is significant to my family, for personal reasons, rather than religious- it was always a very big deal for my mum. Yeah, we worship chocolate.). Two public holidays, in fact. I have a four day consecutive train pass, but no four consecutive days which don't include a public holiday. Crap.

Then again, if this is the most terrible thing that happens in the next 23 days, I am going pretty well. Count down/s begin now.