I sent an email to a project manager outside my team, copying in my boss and others working on this project.

Ten seconds later, both my managers are guffawing and pointing at me.

‘Eventuate?!’ they laughed. ‘Joan, you’ve got to stop making up words! This isn’t the first time…’

‘Wha–?’ I started.

They were in hysterics because I had written: ‘The team believes this is the cautious approach because they cannot be sure that the political push towards a low emissions zone will eventuate.’

Other teamates soon joined my managers in mocking me.

‘It’s a real word!’ I protested. ‘I’ll show you!’

Alarmed, I typed ‘eventuate’ into my Dictionary.com search engine, and it came up:

e·ven·tu·ate
–verb (used without object), -at·ed, -at·ing.

1. to have issue; result.
2. to be the issue or outcome; come about.

[Origin: 1780–90; Americanism; < L éventu(s) event + -ate1]

‘Oh!’ I said, chagrined. ‘Oh dear. It’s an Americanism! I didn’t know.’

Luckily, the person I had emailed was visiting from San Francisco. She, at least, would understand my message.

My neck started hurting on the weekend and by today, I couldn’t move my head at all without it hurting a lot. Pain was accompanied by numbness, tingling and a headache.

After lunch, Anna from our team walked me over to the accident and emergency department of the hospital. I was lucky to be there on a Tuesday afternoon because I had a short two hour wait. If I had come on a Friday night, I probably would have waited four hours. On Friday nights, I imagine the A&E department is full of drunks and people wounded in fights.

The doctor x-rayed me and asked me to push/pull/lift various limbs. After looking at my x-rays, he said that there didn’t seem to be anything wrong. I had probably slept in an awkward position and the pain should go away in a few days.

He gave me painkillers, which help a lot.

Last night, I joined a pub quiz team called ‘Extroverted blind beavers’. I am very bad at pub quizzes. It would not be honest to blame it on me being an Australian in a UK pub.

When I do have an answer, though, it’s to questions that few others can answer. I have random pockets of information.

For example, I identified the title of this book.

How, I have no idea. I don’t think I’ve read it before, I just had a vague feeling it was something about a prince.

Thanks to Damjan, I knew with absolute certainty that the country hosting this year’s Eurovision final is Serbia.

Having debated this at Hamley’s toy store with American friends, Debra and John, I knew that the first Monopoly game was based on Atlantic City in the US.

The question that made me happiest, though, was ‘What is the name of Bob the Builder’s cat?’

You see, that morning, I had to watch five minutes of Bob the Builder with Neo, while waiting for the bathroom to be free. The episode was about Bob cutting a cat flap in his door. I remember thinking, ‘That cat’s named after a fish.’

While at the quiz, I struggled for a few minutes to remember exactly what fish it was. Then I got it: Pilchard.

Pilchard the cat		Pilchard the sardine

Last week was exciting. I spent Monday and Tuesday at Bristol to meet other engineers (and scientists and sociologists) that ‘think in systems’. I was able to confirm that I, too, ‘think in systems’. This means that I zoom out and see the big picture of how bits of a project or team interact with other bits in unexpected ways. (example and again)

For various reasons, there were a couple of non-systems thinkers at some of the sessions and I could tell that they thought we were talking gobbledy gook and mumbo jumbo. I’ll admit, sometimes things get so zoomed out and abstract that things get almost mystical. To a typical engineer, we systems engineers are hippies.

One thing that stuck out in my head from the conference was that while trying to make conversation with an older (retired) engineer, he looked at me patronisingly and made fun of me for saying ‘isshoo’ (issue). I think he was implying the correct pronunciation is ‘issyoo’. Horrid person.

Since November, I have had a small bump in the back of my neck. My local doctor identified it as a harmless cyst.

The bump started hurting occasionally when something pressed against it. In mid-January, I went back to the doctor. She agreed to refer me to a surgery clinic.

I didn’t hear from the surgery for two months. They were supposed to call me to arrange an appointment.

I was prepared for the wait. Many had warned me that the UK National Health Service (NHS) was very good for GP services and would rally behind me in times of serious illness. However, the wait for any medical procedure between routine and emergency is interminable.

After six weeks of no news, I tried to sign up for private health insurance. Then I found out that my company had decided to provide all its UK employees with private health insurance starting in May. I thought, ‘If I don’t hear from the surgery before May, I can at least go to a private surgeon.’

A day before leaving for Germany, I got the letter. The clinic had set my appointment for the week after I came back from holiday. Perfect! Because by the time I was travelling around Germany, even the lightest touch of clothing or my necklace made me wince.

My appointment was today at 9:40 AM with Mister S. Did you know that if a doctor goes through the years of training to become a surgeon, they are honoured with the title of ‘Mister’? (read the link, it’s interesting)

He injected a local anaesthetic. The needle must have been long because it seemed to go on and on. It hurt more than any injection I’ve had. Afterwards, though, the back of my neck was completely numb.

‘Can you feel anything?’ Mister S asked. He and the nurse had already sliced into my neck.

‘Not at all,’ I said. It was very surprising. They must have been digging around back there and I couldn’t feel a thing.

I was thankful that the needle had gone as far as it had when I heard them say, ‘It keeps jiggling.’ ‘It’s tricky. I tried to take it out in one piece but it’s surprisingly deep in.’

Being numb and facing the other way, I didn’t know when the lump had been fished out and when they started stitching me back up. When it was over, I was eager to see the fruits of their labour, which had been dropped into in a small plastic bottle filled with water.

The thing responsible for my pain was white and about 1.5-2 centimetres long. I had expected it to be round but it was long, almost like a small bone. I shook the bottle and it rattled a bit. The lump must have been hard.

I’m glad it’s out of me. I have a dressing on my neck and next week will be back at the GP to get the stitches out.

When I left work today, it was windy. For a long moment, I was disoriented… and instinctively happy.

I worked it out; the wind was warm. I felt like I was in Melbourne.

I haven’t had warm air blown into my face for a long time. Wind in the UK and Germany makes me shrink into my coat, hunch into my scarf, pull down my furry hat.

Somehow, Melbourne wind had found its way to London.