Okay here goes! Writing this under the Daily Prompt Theme –Ready, Set, Done where I just WRITE non stop for 10 minutes, no more, no less, on whatever comes to mind.
How those words are teasing me as all I want to do is be ready, set and done for what’s to come in the next one week!
I just found out two days ago that I am going to China for the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity and I am giving not one, but TWO presentations! I knew about the conference but my attendance depended on so many things from last week. Thank goodness, that part is going well and I can now plan China! But problem (also a great thing) that two of my passions – travel blogging and marine sciences – are coming together under one trip and I am so struggling to balance between researching what I can do in Bejing and Qingdao in 9 days, while at the same time trying to work on my presentations!
And the nightmare I have been having with buying plane ticket, train ticket to Manchester, ticket for babysitter to help out Ashique with kids who is coming all the way from London (she’s a friend, a superstar!) organizing the homefront – school uniforms, after school care and other zillion things – while at the same time so excited about China, my first time there!
Scrambling around all the travel blogs I follow, trying to remember who had posted cool travel information and useful tips for China! Thank goodness for Adventures in Asia, travel blogger living in China, had tons of useful information on her page.
Alternating between blank mind and mind overdosing on information. Need to breathe. Need to make to do list. Hope that blurting out all these thoughts in paper will help to focus the mind. Maybe this will become my to do list! Maybe I will get some clarity after I write this.
Thoughts of Great Wall of China, Forbidden Castle, Secret Garden, I am mixing up all the names, but visions of visiting these places keeping popping into my mind. While at the same time repeating loudly in my head all the things I will be saying about North Sea Fish, Yorkshire shellfisheries, climate change and marine ecosystem services, to a completely foreign audience! Not even sure what to wear! Realization that I have never given a talk outside my own comfortable world of western audience in England, Ireland and France.
Deep breathes…10 minutes done!
Stumble It! 
