In the morning Karaj and I had breakfast together before his first appointment. I then sat in the park and did some more Sicily homework. A gentle day was compensated for in the evening as Karaj and I tried to break all newsletter records by producing the latest one in half a day. I also had the final few stories of my Sicily homework to analyse and I started to get uptight as my thoughts drifted towards just when I would actually get to bed. I had thought we would spend more time preparing for Sicily rather than adding to our workload. Karaj said he wanted me to get excited about Sicily, but I don’t see this as the way to do it.
I struggled to finish the Sicily work until Karaj told me to stop wasting time on it – just write whatever’s on my mind and be done with it. Stop trying to please people. With this advice I quickly finished off the final few stories and got to work on the newsletter. My mood had eased by this time but having to check Karaj’s written work is not the easiest thing to do last thing at night when all I want to do is relax and get my things and myself ready for Sicily.
Karaj’s enthusiasm about the quality of the impending newsletter carried me through but as I said to him when he thanked me for the work I did, ‘I just wish I could have done it without being such a miserable fucker’. Got home at 10pm.