Bad planning

Like a good little worker-bee, I set aside today to prepare for the training I have to take all next week starting at 6:30 in morning. There's software and a manual to download, and a virtual classroom protocol to learn, and nobody here has ever done it before. I'm the trailblazer.

Last night, in a curiously sudden fashion, I was struck by a sore throat. It hit all at once, about ten minutes before my chatwatch of Supernatural with vampirefan. The only portent of it was a slightly chilly, slightly weary feeling.

I woke feeling sickly, and dragged myself in to work for a critical meeting and to do the course preparation. Two hours, tops, I thought.

But no! After the one-hour meeting, I spent an hour just clicking through the enormous set of unbelievably cryptic training links, hitting dead ends and reading instructions written in ESL, and generally getting frustrated.

I was finally making some progress when I came to the step that takes TWO HOURS! Tick tick tick while it counts down a two-hour "gateway test" do-not-ask-me-why, ("DO NOT MINIMIZE THIS WINDOW!") while I sit here with a heavy head and a sore throat and a grave longing to be home and more or less horizontal.

And THEN I found the bit that said, "Do all these steps a week in advance of your class."

Whoops. Monday morning at 6:30 is going to be interesting.