I hope the weather wouldn't be as shitty tomorrow as it was today. Have to sit in a ferry for an hour to get to Macau.

At least this time round meetings are only scheduled for 5 hours instead of the normal 8.

As an academic meetings don't take up the majority of my time but lately I have been finding myself spending more and more time sitting at meetings. And I am still amazed at how some people could just talk and talk and talk for hours and talk over one another and not hear what other people have just said loud and clear even if they were just sitting two feet away from them. It is amazing. How these supposedly accomplished intelligent definitely middle aged and above people, get to be like this. Like how I imagine my dad would be like in five years' time (he is definitely getting there) - senile.

How do people get like that? Why can't they make meetings short and sweet and behave like the cultured and civlized adults that they are supposed to be? Why can't they hear one another, and why can't they get to the bloody point when they speak? why why why?

This is particularly severe in the case of meeting chairpersons. ALL the ones I've seen (apart from our Dear Leader), have an embarrassing tendency to ramble on and on.

Now that I am in this new position and may have to chair meetings every now and then, God, please give me strength, don't let me go down that road. Please give me the strength, the faith and the determination to keep all meetings under 1.5 hours. thank you thank you amen amen.