Sinking

I knew this was going to happen soon. Having stopped doing anything interesting 9 days ago in a bid to let my body recover from whatever was wrong with it, I've sunk into depression. I thought that it would happen sooner, but it only really hit me at lunchtime today. I feel like crying, but the tears don't quite reach the eyes, and I feel like sleeping, but the eyes don't quite close.

I saw the doctor this morning, and she explained that my blood was fine, my organs were all right, my pulse was the right shape and only 50 beats per minute. She suggested that I try to get a grip on my life, find a girlfriend and live more healthily. I think it was the admission of smoking the odd joint that tipped her off, but she quickly grasped that I'm slowly fucking up my life.

I just don't know where to start. Movement would be good, but my legs feel knackered: I got left behind by my colleagues whilst walking to the canteen. Working would be good, but my eyes feel tired and my mind is somewhere else.

Summing up the past couple of weeks, it looks most likely that I took three days off last work to recover from exhaustion caused by an alcohol-fuelled weekend in Hamburg and two football matches.

Wasting time on Wikipedia

When I started my new job in February, I decided to stop sending emails and surfing the web during worktime in a bid to improve productivity. This didn't really help, as I decided that wikipedia was too useful not to use, and whenever I am not feeling up to working I look at occasionally interesting articles, such as the tale of Lieutenant Hugh Goldsmith and the Logan rock near Treen. Never underestimate a dozen seamen with a lever and a place to stand.

Walking not very fast

The residents of my street might have been surprised to see a young man break into a sprint and then stumble along for several yards, as if he was starring in a bad western and had just received a poisoned arrow through the shoulderblades. I was that man, and this morning I was trying to work out what was wrong with me.

The last four days I've been walking around at a sub-pensioner pace. I was overtaken by a guy with a walking stick (he was just holding it, not supporting himself on it—fucking show-off) and I just got some sympathy from a couple of spanish girls who thought that I was going to fall asleep whilst changing escalators in the U-Bahn. I considered running after them to explain that I was ill and am not usually so slow, but I decided that they might be freaked out by a madly stumbling wanabee matinee hero.

They weren't far off the mark with their idea that I might fall asleep, as I have spent most of the last days sleeping: a good night's sleep, followed by a morning nap and an afternoon nap. And the naps are long, deep and dream-filled, too.

Apart from sleeping lots and being unable to walk normally, there is nothing much wrong with me, which is how I came upon the idea of sprinting. Maybe the illness was imaginary, and I just needed to snap out of it, I thought. So I suddenly changed from a slow and sleepy trudge into a sprint and then a stumble. I'm now convinced that there is something wrong, but I don't know what.

I saw a doctor on Thursday, and I think she was wanted to prescribe me a girlfriend and some career ambition, but she eventually plumped for the more conventional blood test and ultrasound scan.

Hermes 4 - DESY Old Guys 4

I'm back at DESY in Hamburg for one last time. The Hermes experiment has stopped running, as has the accelerator where it was situated. To mark this occasion all past and present workers were invited to a 2-day-long party.

The highlight of these celebrations was a football match against the senior team of the accelerator. The match was quite a light-hearted affair, with numerous substitutions and an age range of approaching 50 years. I played for both sides (the DESY team had a couple of injuries and no substitutes) and ran around a lot.

A player from the DESY team told me that there are plans to build some new accelerator facilities on the DESY football pitch. This seems a pity, for the football pitch was one of the nicest things about DESY.