The recent wisps of cloud that have partially shrouded the sun’s rays were and remain a welcome shift in the weather patterns that have graced the Maltese Islands as of late. Not only has the weather brought a fairly decent flow of wind but the shaded periods also provide myself with respite from the radiance of light seeping through the thick curtains of my room before proceeding to filter warmly through my eyelids as I do my bit to get some sleep. Its never anything that a soft piece of cloth used as a blindfold cannot fix of course but the shadows always seemed a little more calm, easy and less invasive than the light.

And yet it makes me quietly yearn for the coming month, September, where clouds become less alien to the azure skies and where the hope for less stifling temperatures is very much present within my mind. Of course, one of my favourite aspects of the month, certainly about half-way into it, is the significantly higher potential to witness spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

There is just something so fulfilling about watching the dance of the solar rays within the hanging clouds of ever changing shape and hue. Regardless of whether the horizon it rises upon is a green forest bursting with life or the barren smouldering landscape of a recent war zone. Regardless of whether it heralds a day of joy or leaves behind a day of mourning the natural cycles proceed virtually unscathed.

In my few travels I have been fortunate enough to look down upon and drive by seemingly massive wooded lands and paddocks. I have had the pleasure of watching the sun set and then listen to the rolling thunder outside. Ah yes. Such memories shall remain with me and nor shall I forget those who had shared their experiences with me, regardless of what the future may send my way. I mark the 11th of August as a day holding a fragile link to some of the happier moments so far experienced, to be kept and cherished as an era all in its own. And with this in mind the past is to be appreciated but the future is yet to be faced. Another sunrise and another sunset – another experience and another episode in the progression of life.

Well a month has passed and I somehow managed to fit in a fresh fragment for every day of it, give or take a little stuttering in the post scheduling. It has been a satisfying time and I got to make a number of new blog contacts and a couple of really pleasant persons through it so I’d say that it has been worth my while.

However as with all good things sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and ease the pace a little. OK. Sure it doesn’t seem like a lot but the truth is that I have to balance upon several tightropes and yet remain on-track. It is the downside of taking on commitments – you eventually get round to realizing that they actually take up sizeable chunks out of your time.

Well, all misgivings aside, I shall be cutting down on contributions to about once every other day. While it will hopefully mean an improvement in the qualitative selection of post topics, such is beyond my ability to guarantee. In the meantime the ‘Ask James‘ page is still active and I will seek to answer questions as best as I can. Actually I encourage readers to send in questions as good questions tend to save me time thinking about what I will be writing about next.

There are not many things that I truly get hung up on. For the most part things just slide off of me like water off a duck’s back. However there do remain a few things that bother me and one of the worst would probably be personal inefficiency.

I like to be punctual. It doesn’t matter if it is meeting a deadline set by others or myself or whether its getting to a certain place by or at a certain time, I do not like to keep persons waiting. It is fortunate that I do not apply these standards quite as rigorously to other persons around me as I’d probably end up with an even smaller network of individuals that I’d call friends than I do at present.

However I also have several rather annoying habits that sometimes hinder my ability to meet my own standards. One is a tendency to underestimate tasks that I have to deal with, or to overestimate my ability to deal with them within a set period of time. Another is a tendency to take on or seek to take on more tasks than I can actually handle at any one time. This is why my personal to-do list dwarfs my done list. Either way these little quirks mean that I end up encroaching upon or even surpassing my deadlines more often than I would care to admit. It is similarly fortunate that this is far more likely where the tasks are being dealt by myself and ‘for’ myself but occasionally other persons do get a bitter taste of it in the form of way-overstepped expected deadlines.

I guess it comes down to having time-management issues really and, since I am reluctant to give up the new-found pace that I’ve set into motion within this web log, I thought it would be good to use this opportunity both to apologize to that individual who is waiting for work from myself as well as to provide a little insight to readers. I am working upon it of course, and will try to get results through as soon as possible, but I’ll be sparing the estimates this time as they were wildly optimistic the last time round and I’m nowhere near done with the segment concerned.

Besides, I can be a bit of a perfectionist and if there is one thing that troubles me more than handing in work late, it would have to be handing in what I personally consider to be shoddy work.