This working life

This week I am at TRENZ, which is the annual tourism jamboree here - on a vastly smaller scale, the equivalent of IPW in the US, which I will be missing again this year (it's going to be in Anaheim, and it will consequently be spectacular). Our event is in Rotorua this time, or Roto-vegas as it's sometimes called. That's because the town is full of things to do, and is a bit tacky and gaudy - plus, it smells, though that's solely a Rotorua thing. There's also a big emphasis on Māori culture, which is another element missing from the Nevada original.

I haven't been here for three years, so it's fun to see it again, wreathed in sulphurous steam from all its thermal activity, and bristling with all sorts of new activities since my last visit. Bristling, but not buzzing, exactly - just ticking over quietly, from what I can see. It is winter, after all. What is buzzing, and humming, virtually seething, is the Events Centre by the lakefront, where more exhibitors than ever are showing off their wares to tourism people from - theoretically - all over the world, but mainly Asia from what I can see. Most of them are agent-type people, but there are media too, and I am one of them.

This is my fourth tourism conference, and it's still a bit of a novelty. This time though I am a lot more practised and brazen about my begging spiel, which essentially amounts to showing selected operators what my stories look like, and then asking for free stuff. I'm quite shameless. What is still hard to get used to, is getting up at 7am and reporting for duty at 9am and then spending the entire day on my feet, talking to people or sitting on a hardish chair listening to moderately dull media presentations. That's not how we freelance writers roll, you know. Or not me, anyway. No, I ease into the day with a morning walk, a leisurely breakfast with the newspaper, and after my habitual coffee and nuts, might sit down at the laptop (in an armchair, in the sun), at about 11am. And then I work solidly till it's time for the 6pm news. Except when I don't, of course. It depends a bit on Twitter.

It's a privileged lifestyle, I know, and I actively (the opposite of actively) enjoy it - especially when I shall return to it after three long days of business hours, business people, and business. It's just plain exhausting. I was going to go on to say something about having forgotten about that kind of working life but in fact, with a history of being a student, a groom and then a teacher, the 9-5 routine has always been foreign to me.I don't know how you, dear regular 😃 reader, do it.