Bad news: Mimi went home today. Good news: Q-tip's no longer limping. No, good news and bad news do not always have to be related.

Our new vicar preached at our service for the first time but I'm sorry to say I fell asleep through most of it. Guess he didn't leave much of an impression on me. It's just that I've been tired over the weekend and I'm still tired right now. Building up the energy to go back to disciplined routine is part of the problem and maybe the other part is insufficient sleep due to too many late nights these past few days. And I don't have to study for exams, so I really do sympathise with the students. But I have a marking pile that is no joke either. Marking is almost a routine, assembly line job except that it also requires exceptional creative thinking and interpretive skills as well as an evaluative mind that can decide whether the words written (sometimes deciphering the handwriting is an additional task) can possibly make any sense in relation to the question being asked, and how well, before allocating a quantitative value on the latter.

It's such a paradox how mentally taxing this mindless exercise can be. No wonder I'm zonked...