Grateful for time out

Yesterday I worked on a uni assignment. All day.  In between hanging out wet washing and bringing in the dry things.

This particular assignment is due next Friday and I'm almost done. I have to be, because I have another assignment 'on the go', and few timeslots available this week to be able to work on them both. There is a lot of juggling involved in studying, working and running a household. I could almost join the circus!

This assignment started off not too bad. I was winning, for a while.  Until I reached the maximum word count but had only completed the first half of the paper.  Oops!  Do you know how hard it is to cull a written assignment and reduce the word count, without eliminating important* parts of your answer?  It's hard. This assignment is doing my head in.

By late afternoon I was so wound up I felt I could snap at any moment. I wanted to finish this stupid bloody assignment so badly. That was all I could think about. Those thoughts were creating a roadblock in my head and I wasn't making any progress. It was time to 'step away from the laptop'.

So I went to the movies with my mum. We booked online (how easy is that?) to see an early evening screening of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

 Luckily mum drove, in my present state I would have been a candidate for road rage. I took my seat in the cinema, still feeling like my head was gonna cave in. Thoughts of my unfinished assignment were overwhelming me. I couldn't work out whether I wanted to scream, or cry. So I just sat there, staring. But by the end of the movie previews I had begun to relax. (There looks to be some great movies headed our way soon!)

As the movie began, I was rapidly drawn into the story of Oskar Schell, an 11 year old boy whose dad was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Oskar discovers a key in his father's closet and goes in search of the lock it opens, in a quest to keep a connection with the man who had always helped him face his wildest fears.  Starring Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock and Thomas Horn (as Oskar), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is as heart-warming as it is heart-wrenching. It's a extraordinary movie. I thoroughly recommend it.

I so needed those few hours of time out. Time to immerse myself in an adventurous story filled with an eclectic mixture of sadness, humour and hope. My assignment was forgotten, for a while at least.

Linking up with Maxabella and Kidspot for 52 Weeks of Grateful


*not really, none of it is all that important.