August 2026: Racing with Time & A Forced Time-out

Week 1.

August 2026 started on a weekend; despite the many important things waiting for me to be picked up… my physical and mental health forced me to slow down and recharge first. I spent the weekend in bed, mostly resting, and started getting back to my office work as the weekdays came in.

I had committed to writing some tests. After a lot of internal debate, I thought of deferring them… Losing an opportunity by not showing up felt like an expensive and reckless move, so I reached out for a rescheduling instead. I promised myself to be strategic with my responsibilities ; take things up and complete them based on their importance and how much my health would actually allow.

If it were a different time, I could have taken some time off from work… but looking at everything, I felt hesitant. The week made me increasingly busier ; I was tackling the piled-up work from the office while also studying for the tests.

Week 2.

My health recovered; at least the fever was gone now. But I could not catch a break, as the office work and ongoing tests were keeping me on my toes for the whole week.

There was a sense of urgency… the anxiety was building up… but that doesn’t help with the success of the outcome. I had to learn about my own shortcomings and keep showing up every day.

Due to the mountain of work in front of me, I decided to work remotely for the whole week. And then, on one of the busiest days of the week, I baked a vanilla cake for my 10-year work anniversary.

It’s not about how deeply I care about work (which I think I do), but how a so-called “average” job changed my life for the better as a college graduate. I moved cities, made some multi-cultural friends, faced many difficulties with career growth, office politics, health issues, money worries… but grew as an adult more than I did after achieving other milestones in my life.

This week, I also went to the office for a couple of days… it was so incredibly tiring to spend 12 hours at work and commuting, and then come home to work even more. Ironically, it all happened because of a lack of buses from my office to home.

Week 3.

The weekends have changed so much since my semester ended and I decided not to take part in weekend recruitment drives. Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed both of them ; but it was high time for me to get a break… I now spend the weekend taking plenty of rest, watching 1–2 episodes on Netflix (instead of running through whole seasons), and then working on self-improvement tasks.

Then the weekdays rolled in…

After two moderately eventful workdays, I woke up with a seemingly harmless sore throat… By the end of the day, I was coming down with a fever again. I thought I would log off early, take rest for the night, and wake up all good the next morning ; but I could not have been more wrong. By night, I was knocked out with a blinding headache and a 101°F fever.

I took the next few days off… I was stuck in bed for 4–5 days, unable to keep up with my previous commitments for the week. Things became rather chaotic at work while I was sick. A meeting with the execs squeezed the timeline of a milestone by two weeks; the intention was not clear, but all the managers and engineers felt the immediate sense of panic and anxiety.

And when I logged in briefly, I was surprised to find a pile of unread messages. Despite my fever, I worked briefly on one of these days and even joined a meeting with my team to understand what was going on… But for the rest of the time, I had to stay offline, as my fever had not subsided and my headache had made me cry in pain through the night.

My mother had a fever as well, with slightly different symptoms than mine, but unfortunately, I could not do anything to comfort her. Instead, she had to take care of me from time to time whenever her fever was down. My father had a fever as well, but was much less defeated by it than the two of us. The whole week, my sister stepped up and did a lot around the house to keep the household running.

Week 4.

After five days of an unwavering fever, I was ready to visit the doctor, along with my mum and my sister… I usually binge-watch Netflix or sleep for long hours during sick days. But this time was different ; it felt like my head was about to burst… I’d get chills throughout the day and only pass out for a few hours, then wake up to many missed calls and messages.

The fever was finally gone, and I still had some medicines to continue as per the doctor’s advice… I finally picked up work again.

This week, I went to work for a couple of days, wrote some more tests… I had been hit hard by many trickeries and also rejections. I also took some interviews this week. At work, I had to really push hard to stay on track with the new timeline, but by the end of the week, I finally felt like things were falling into their right places (thanks to God for that)!!

The last weekend of the month wasn’t much eventful. I had to go to a Government office for some paperwork. For the rest of the weekend, I stayed at home and took complete rest ; not even trying to catch up with studying or household chores.

Food-ventures of August 2026.

Baking a vanilla cake on the occasion of completing 10 years at work.
The vegetarian ensemble – Khichudi (rice/lentil mix), Beguni (egg-plant fritter) & Alur dom (potatoes)
That super-crispy potato fry recipe that is hard to nail
Making veg patties at home with frozen puff pastry sheets.

That’s all for today, see you in another one!