Braving the boring

My company sent me for a course today -- 'Braving the challenges in cross-cultural communication'. A whole-day course on this?! And the worst part was -- the original instructor Mr Podolinsky (who I'd hoped would be a hot Russian hunk) dropped out at the last minute, and his replacements were so boring that they instantly put us to sleep!

And unfortunately, I was sitting right under the nose of the instructors. At one point in time, I was so sleepy that I had to lean over and whisper to my neighbour, "Slap me if I doze off!" Finding nothing better to do in order to keep myself awake, I started compiling a list of hidden talents that the sleepy attendees were discovering during the course.

Here goes:

Things you can do to kill time without dozing off during a really boring all-day course

- send sms messages to the persons sitting on either side of you
- practise writing with your left hand (or right, if you're a leftie)
- catch up with old random friends over sms
- pass around nonsensical notes -- the laughing will keep you awake
- think of how you would keep people awake if you were the instructor
- copy-edit the case studies
- use the styrofoam milo cups as your canvas and let your artistic side go wild
- challenge yourself -- how many times can you excuse yourself and go to the loo?
- cough/sneeze every three minutes to keep yourself awake
- cross your legs and sit on your chair in a yogic pose
- count the number of teeth you have, using only your tongue
- repeat the above to verify the number
- miss the good old office (??!!)

Sigh... what an awful and unproductive day.

I consoled myself with this -- Life is never so bad that it can't get worse.