exhaling

 this past week was considerably more relaxed than the previous ones, but i still worked long hours with little to no exercise* or fresh air and was so focused on catching up on one system that i got practically nothing done on my main goal.

* although a few days this week the weather was nice enough to get in the pool for a bit.

and then yesterday morning, after consulting with my boss, i realized i need to publish the release we've been working on and the entire day was a mad rush to figure out how to do it and troubleshooting the process. with some much-needed assistance from a couple of coworkers and an encouraging amount of good fortune, it was finally published and tested by 6pm.

and now i'm on holiday for a week. i have a few things i'd like to do, but no pressure to do anything other than enjoy the now, read books and play video games. i'm kinda keen on getting back into ffix :)

gd's documents are finally on their way from pretoria, so one of the things to do this week is submit everything and try to get her aliya interview arranged. this has been one heck of a challenging process, i'm praying things go smoothly.

regarding the US elections: it's been hard not to follow the news on this, but i'm not exactly sure why as i don't know how significant it is which of these guys is elected. i have read a couple of fascinating articles, though, on why so many americans are voting for trump and these ring true: the americans have some underlying issues that they need to address sincerely, otherwise things are only going to get worse for them.

• why "trumpism" isn't going anywhere
• a culture of immediate gratification and cognitive dissonance
• tribalist tensions rising
• losing the technology war (which translates to a weakening economy, amongst other scary things)