Back to the Grind

For some reason, the 16-hour plane ride back to Dubai was harder than the 16-hour plane ride back to the US; only slept a few hours. We arrived in Dubai at 8:30 pm, but our connecting flight didn't take-off until 6:30 am. The hard part of spending the night in the Dubai airport was trying to transfer to the other terminal to wait to board my next flight. Since my next flight didn't leave until the next morning, I couldn't go straight over to the other terminal. So I had to wait until 12:30 before they'd let me through the security gate. THEN, I find out that I have to wait until 3:30 am to get my transfer to the other terminal. It was a lot of waiting around, trying to catch a nap with my head in my hand. All this (the flights, the waiting) was made harder by a massive head-cold I had been fighting for two weeks.

I arrived back to Kabul and KAIA by 11:00 am and was showered, shaved, and back at work by 1:00 pm. Like coming back from all TDYs and leaves, I spent the afternoon clearing out hundreds (literally) of e-mails I received while I was gone. It was kind of nice though that co-workers were shaking my hand to welcome me back; like they genuinely missed me.
Then, reality set in as people started informing me of projects and taskers that I had to do soon: Who's waiting on me to do the beddown slides? I'm supposed to brief the force flow at what ROC drill? I'm going out to RC-West when; to help them do what? That kept me spun-up
for awhile and actually helped me make it through most of the day, but by 7:00 pm I was starting to feel loopy, literally dizzy. So I left work early and slept 11 hours. Fortunately the next day was Sunday, a late report day.

It's taken almost a week to finally get over my cold. I think it was the vitamin B complex and zinc pills I've been taking every morning and getting 8 hours of sleep each night that finally helped me kill it off. And I've gotten a grasp on which duties and taskers I actually have to
do. I've successfully pushed off or deflected a few and know what I need to do for the rest. Now I just have to get use to working 14-15 hours days again.