Good intuition

It was only yesterday that I said that I would enjoy a couple of lazy days until life would return to normal.

I don’t know what it is with me, what makes me decide to open the gates of hell, not on Monday, but today.

Maybe I have good intuition.

Maybe I’m just dumb.

Or maybe both?

I was very scared for what I’d find. Anxiety-toilet-run type scared. (I’m sorry if this is too much… But those of you with anxiety problems will understand.) In any case, three weeks of not reading my email yielded only a measley 153 emails. Being clear about your absence, writing a clear out of office reply, and maybe not being all that popular make for a good filter. I know that I usually receive much more than this.

It took me about half an hour to separate the junk from the more important stuff. I don’t understand why people want to sell me cancer medicine (I don’t have cancer), or why they want to buy my illumina sequencer (I have none). Email also included various repeated review requests for four different journals. Only one journal retracted the invitation. I accepted two others, and declined another. I take my reviewer duty seriously, but can’t handle more than two per month… Email also included five or so scheduled meetings for which my presence was requested, but I doubt I can attend any. Other than that, there were some teaching and management related emails, but nothing bothersome.

In fact, the only important email was one that was sent this morning. It was a reminder for a group barbecue.

I like barbecues.

And so this evening, I took the family out to have barbecue with colleagues. It was actually pretty nice to see everyone together. This was a first real get-together since the start of the pandemic, and I guess now that everyone has been vaccinated, it is totally acceptable.

I’m happy that I opened my email today. I had a good evening. And – now – a clean slate on Monday. It will make coming back to office next week much much less daunting.