I make no secret of the fact that I miss my boys at home...they may not be very far away but right now our lives are moving at different paces and in varied directions so even if I was still at home in Cobh things probably wouldn't be as they used to anyway...I have far too few photos of them and those that I have, well I don't think I should publish online ;) Don't get me wrong there are of course still connection points...a two month game of questions for one!! and fairly regular email correspondence for another but still.... And then there are the boys in my life that are too far away for me to do anything about it...like this one or this one and of course the charmed one ;) The ones I wish I could just have more time with, like the day at Avila Magica when we waited an hour for churros because we really weren't in a hurry to do anything else :)

This week though I had time to catch up on guy time...just hanging out and trading smart answers. Sharing the very best and worst of drunken stories with Petr over Czech beer and Irish whiskey and finally learning how to play Risk with the boys from the Belgian MC :) Good times, good times.....

Fairly productive week with board and company meetings, WENA interviews and learning how Petr likes to do things last minute ;) Finally got around to cracking open the Jameson... and it was as fantabulously wonderful as expected - thanks again :) :) The Belgians have invaded....looking forward to what will be an interesting weekend I am sure!

Best of Luck this weekend Franky ....I'm sure you will be making the very best of Conexiones!! Love you :)

In preparation for a busy busy week...

Just sitting and chatting, the game of questions still rages and for the second month in a row my online messages are almost depleted...only problem is there is still an entire week left in April ;) the light has returned to Dublin, not that we spend winter wrapped in all consuming darkness but for sure by 8pm it is usually time for lights...not now! Also my alarm clock is becoming a little used appliance now that spring sunshine streams through my window from about 7am onwards :) guiltless pleasures!!

The coming week looks packed! BoD meeting, visit from Petr and WENA Board interviews among the highlights! I also need to make time to catch up with Aisling....talk over some ideas and then pure and simple get stuck in.

Still missing my roomie and I don't think that will change before the term ends. Not that I will stop missing her then but it just doesn't seem right to be here without her! But Prue and I are adapting...although part of me secretly does hope that this is a belated April fools joke and that really she will walk through the door any day now back from a conference and not the dentist!

For now, I think I have almost caught up on email correspondence...if you've been promised one and yet to receive it rest assured it is on its way :) boys as perplexing as ever! nothing new there though ;) Breakfast with the bro' on Saturday was fun...early hour aside that is! Had a great night out last night with Luca, Stefano and Irina..even if I was asleep when they called to get me!

slightly disappointed with the weekend's sport...was really rooting for Jose's boys to close the gap to one...oh well!

Argh! Trying to settle into office routine but my gaze keeps falling on an empty desk in front of me :( and my mind keeps wandering...

Despite my obvious excitement and honour at being invited to chair NC3 in Norway I can't help but think that this weekend and what was supposed to be an amazing xp was completely overshadowed by the situation at home, namely that the forces that be seemed to be conspiring to deprive me of a room mate before I could come home to say goodbye! No matter how hard I tried to focus on the task at hand my mind kept wandering back to the fact that this year despite our best efforts we have run into brick wall after brick wall. Try as I might to avoid self pity and once again your wise words were much appreciated Borge...I just could not manage to put the fact that I wasn't going to be allowed to finish my term with my room/team mate and that kept so much of me preoccupied. I pride myself on my ability to put a positive spin on most things and yet this weekend I failed miserably and in the process I fear I left some people down very badly. People I care about quite a lot and for that I am sorry.

As for Colleen, the post-it left on my screen summed it up...I miss you already or rather still...we haven't even had the chance to properly debrief on our Italian/Norwegian experiences... amongst soo many other things! It is so unfair that this ends now...when we were in truth just getting the hang of living together! ;) Professionally I have lost the "challenging one" that has forced me to question so much of who I am...for that I will be forever grateful....man I didn't even get the chance to tell you that in person! Nor did we have the chance to crack open the Jameson.

I don't think I have ever written such a down beat post, but there you have it...it is where I am at.

Reunion shindig sooooooooner rather than later, the only question is where?!!

Norway in a nutshell....

* Charging a €4 coffee and croissant to my credit card * Finally getting to know the other members of the infamous "loop" * Fika with Annika * Meeting exciting and ambitious EB members from AIESEC in Norway * A fantastic external day * Experiencing the Scandanavian toastmaster tradition * SNOW!! (even if it was only the left overs of winter snow) * Funky t-shirt from Magnus * Seeing Lars in his element * Squirrel mix * Viktor sneaking the banana in * Experiencing an ambitious conference from many angles * Bebot-ing * Watching the most energetic OCP EVER in action with her equally amazing team! * Late night/very early morning chatting with Kirsten * Seeing people go all out for the Hawaiian party!! * An additional bonus to being in Norway - kitchen chattage with JC the party delegate ;) * Being mildly (read very) surprised by the GTK the new MC traditions * Star gazing * Post conf hanging out with Annika * Leaving the Peace museum for a return trip as it was closed on Monday * Sitting at the end of a little dock in Oslo harbour with my book...just enjoying some time * Eccentric bus driver on the airport express bus that insisted on giving us time/distance updates in seconds/mm :-/

Obviously soo much more to tell but well...I did say Norway in a nutshell.....

Home sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet home.......

When Collen pointed out a copy of The Amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay in the library I was a bit iffy about it...maybe I was distracted by her pronounciation of the word Pulitzer, I still find our linguistic differences so interesting and highly entertaining! But I think that maybe it had something to do with the quote on the front that claimed "Perfection. There are perhaps four other books I've loved this much, and none that has made me cry more". For sure that is high praise. I was already a tad sceptical.

But I had a vague recollection of having heard of it somewhere before and encouraged by the fact that it was basically about comic book writers my mind was made up and it came home with me. Of course when I got it home I remembered where I had previously seen/heard of the book. It is Seth Cohen's favourite book and he even included it in his "Seth Cohen" starter pack for Chrismukkah....ok so the book was earning some brownie points, I mean afterall the Goonies was also included in the starter pack...so that is a sign of taste right? That or the fact that I grew up in the 80s. Either way this book had managed to get some pop culture references and it won a pulitzer, there had to be something to it.

And then I started to read. Suddenly I was enthralled! Not only by Chabon's incredibly easy to read style but also by the intricacies of the plot, relationships, historical content. In short I was impressed by everything about the book.

It didn't quite make me cry, but the story is exquisitely written dealing with any number of quite complicated themes. Escape in its many forms takes an obvious and central role but amongst other things there is the perceived American need for heroes, the prominence of Jewish writers and their contribution to American pop culture, love and the importance of family.

There is apparently a movie on the way but it has been in pre-production since 2001 so don't wait for that....read this book!!!

Monday morning distraction

Monday morning no different from any other....get to office, check mail, sign into msn, make some phonecalls, post on blog, Rob messages...usual banter about morning/evening greetings and then he sends me this....Mr World....well technically speaking he sent me the link to some Thai message board and Prue found the official website...that and videos on youtube :) so basically Thank you Robert for making sure no work is done in our office this morning!!!

Just another reason to love the Eurovision....

There have been angry protests by Ukranian nationalists following the selection of a drag queen, Verka Serdyuchka, as their entry for this year's Eurovision song contest :) classic!!!