Donut with no centre gets bachelor to feel uncertain (5)

All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.
-- Marcel Proust
If I've been a little blogger slacker this week, it's because I've been busy. On Tuesday after getting home, I looked after the kids for the afternoon (Neva was home sick), and Cheryl and I went out a night early for a Valentiney dinner at Windmills Café, which was lovely.

Wednesday, I did the morning in prison, and came to Queen's for the afternoon to do a travel clinic (meaning I prescribe all theantimalarials for students, mostly going to Punta Cana for their reading week), and then we went over to Huss and Sarah's for a dinner and a visit with them and Eva and Andrew. They surprised me with a J-shaped birthday cake too, which was also very sweet.

Yesterday, I was my "triage doc" day at Queen's, but many people must have already left in mind if not in body for reading week. I had fewer than forty visits, and it was quite manageable. There was a movie night at the scuba club (something about sharks), but it coincided with Neva's swimming lesson, and to be honest, although I would have liked to go, I was craving a night at home a little.

I had a phone call this week from one of the walk-in clinics I work at. Part of my arrangement at Student Health at Queen's is a requirement to do one shift per month at a walk-in clinic. Despite the scheduling efforts of the guy organizing it, there are sometimes still gaps in the schedule that need to be filled with short notice. When this happens, they offer a cash bonus that makes taking the shift a little more lucrative. When they called on Wednesday to ask if I would like to do a Friday night shift or a Sunday afternoon shift, I ended up volunteering for both. Then as soon as I got off the phone and already feeling overworked, I wondered if I had made a stupid decision.

Last night, another receptionist called back and said she wasn't sure if she was reading the schedule correctly - did I want to do both shifts? Because I could just do one if I liked... She then added that if I didn't work the Friday one, then she wouldn't have to work either, and her motivation became clearer. I said that I would do whatever she wanted - if she wanted me to stay at home, I would just do the Sunday one, and she said we ought to do that, but then added that if anyone called to ask I should claim that I hadn't been able to do it after all. After hanging up this time I wondered if I had done a stupid again, because now I could either go along with her suggestion and lie about my availability (and look dishonourable for committing and then breaking my commitment only a day later, or end up having to pay a cash penalty for not showing up for clinic), or say that she had suggested that I take it off, and probably land her in trouble.

She must have sensed my apprehension - she called back, and we decided together that we should probably go ahead and work the clinic tonight.

And now that I'm starting work that I will not finish for twelve or thirteen hours, I'm wondering again if I should have done things differently.