At 2am, after 18.5 hours at work, I was told that I could return to the hotel because my boss wanted me nice and fresh when I got up at 6:30am for the early shift.

Ummmm…a bit late for that I think!

Ok, so we all knew that tonight was going to be hell, we’re on the second last day and everything needs to be finalized before the closing session starts tomorrow.

Now my document is pretty straight forward and, through some miraculous negotiating I manged to get everyone to agree to it by 8pm. I rushed to get it finalised, added a bonus annex, and sent it off to the translators by 10.

Oh, did I mention that I forgot to eat dinner.

And that I only realized that after there was no possibility of getting food in this strange swamp we call the convention center.

So I ordered a pizza.

Even though I have plenty of food at the hotel.

Because my boss told me that I have to stay until 5am.

In case anyone else gets tired and needs me to relieve them.

What the F$#@?

No, I mean seriously, I’m supposed to sit around doing nothing until 5 am (bearing in mind I got here at 7:45am this morning), in case somebody else gets tired!?!

If there we nice comfy couches I could sleep on it might be ok but the only sofas here are like 3 feet long and the floor is a sketchy shad of grey which implies that the true colour is actually a much lighter shade of grey.

AND I’M BORED.

Speaking of which, I’d better get back to the meeting room in case anyone gets tired.

Ok so I found two other people who went to the party last night so I didn’t have to go alone, however, I forgot one slight disadvantage to going to a party. A disadvantage which I’d completely forgotten…leaving.

Yep, that’s right there I was a belly full of beef and fries sloshing around in two beers and it hit me. We left to go to the party at 10pm, by the time I got my food it was 11:45pm, by the time I was settling back in my chair it was 12:15am and I was ready for bed.

My mistake might have been the two beers (four would have kept me awake, none certainyl wouldn’t have made me sleepy but two…that’s like the magic number for a good night’s sleep). Combine that with a string of late - by my standards - nights and early - by everyone’s standards - mornings and all I really wanted to do was sleep.

The problem was that the party was quite a ways away from the hotel and I had paid for the cab ride out on the understanding that the person I was with would pay for the ride back. She, however, had more than two beers and was ready to dance the night away.

I sat there weighing the draw of my bed to the $10 extra I would have to pay if I left early and, in some bizzare psychological experiment I was able to assign a dollar value to my time. I think I’m like a taxi though, the cost of my time goes up after midnight. Anyway, after midnight $10 will get you exactly seven minutes of my time which means that if I spend an hour with you after midnight I’m basically saying that you are worth more to me than $85.71 (US).

Well today is Friday and I’m feeling pretty good mostly because I got home early last night (home meaning the hotel and early meaning 9pm). Anyway the Peruvians are putting on a party tonight which would be great to go to if I can convince someone else I know to come. I have to say I hate parties where I don’t know anyone, forget Chinesse water torture, just stick me in a room full of people who know each other but not me. Add music and fun and I’m in hell.

There is also a fieldtrip on Sunday which I want to go on but, again, first I have to convince someone to come with me. Not because I don’t want to travel alone (I actually really enjoy travelling alone) but rather because I don’t want to be the only one going on a field trip instead of coming into work on Sunday…Jaime the lazy really has absolutely no ring to it at all.

Well that’s it from me for today, I need to totter on my high heels down to the exhibition hall, whose existence was only just revealed to me.

There is something somewhat thrilling about blogging when you’re not supposed to. This post is currently disguised as a very important work email, although if anyone was to look too closely it would be quite evident that it’s not.

Brazil is quite nice although I really haven’t seen much other than the route between the hotel and the conference centre. For some reason the bus driver seems to take a different route every morning which at least provides some variety. So far I have seen:

A jack russell terrier sitting on top of a six foot high wall

A horse pulling a cart and wearing a red wool cap

A giant grocery store painted florescent green

A man wearing a grass skirt and jeans