Well, I now have a 2 week vacation and it's definitely needed.

However, I've got a lot of things that need to be done during this vacation. I need to get ahold of a plumber because my kitchen tab is a piece of junk that leaks a bit too often for my liking. To be done on Monday.

I've promised a friend to help write a design document for a grand sparetime project he's working on (he's a good friend and I owe him), and I need to prepare a journey to another part of the country to attend the combined birthday party of two cousins.

At the moment, I'm a little tired for a number of reasons:

1. Woke up a little past 2 AM Wedneysday morning from a bad dream that involved myself engaging in something that may or may not be child abuse in an attempt to discipline an unruly schoolgirl that was royally pissing me off. Scary as Hell, but also rather agitating and unfortunately, I could not calm my raging emotions, so I spent the next three or so hours tossing and turning and trying hard, but in vain to think of something pleasant that would put me back to sleep.

It never happened, so I ended up deciding to get up five minutes to 5, but took another 15 minutes or so actually rising out of bed.

Sleep deprivation… joy!

I figure the dream came from watching a bunch of boys showering a girl with snow the day before and being reminded of an encounter with a gang og schoolboys tormenting a younger boy late summer (I blogged about that incident a while back).

I didn't intervene in the "snow fight", because I couldn't make up my mind as to whether or not it was serious enough to justify a complete stranger interfering. Frankly, I still don't know…

2. Employers still trying to squeeze as much work out of me as they could. understandable, as they need every available employee around this time. I don't blame them and I *was* going on a two-week vacation, so it's only fair that I have to work a little for it.

3. Aforementioned friend having some serious issues with the people he's working on his sparetime project with. It's a cool, highly creative project that if realized even remotely as my friend (and by extension, myself) want it, would be truly amazing. Sadly, the other team members lack the same motivation and insight into the overall vision, and my friend can't get them to work with him – they do their own stuff, despite the fact that their deviations from the main goal are more damaging for the overall project than useful.

Had a major discussion with these people yesterday. I spoke the truth (as my friend pointed out), but they wouldn't accept it, citing their desire to be allowed "total, creative freedom". Unprofessional and conservative as Hell.

…And damned exhausting. My friend and I have both openly taken responsibility for "not communicating our goal properly", but deep down, I'm getting convinced that we've done what can reasonably be expected of us and that we're in for an impossible task with these people and their rigid, inflexible mindsets.

4. Slight anxiety as a result of small worries related to arrangements needed to be made about going to my cousins' birthday party.

On the plus side, I've just completed a nice test animation of a 3d modelled character, which I'm damned proud of and damned excited about. The full project is still a ways off, but reaching a milestone really lifts the morale. Makes the long period of tedious work really be worth it.