Oh my goodness what a peculiar place!
I had never ever been to Canary Wharf, until this afternoon. It is honestly the least british place imaginable – and this is from a person who has been to Milton Keynes. Canary Wharf is on the Isle of Dogs, so South East London I guess. And it is just like being in one gigantic shopping mall, that has poor signage and the sense that you are traveling in circles while in fact you are moving in a straight line.
I can completely see why people like to work there. Everything is shiny and new looking. I mean I have never seen such a pristine tube station, Nor quite so many men in Suits! It also looks like everybody must be able to see out of the office across London at some point during the day. Anyone who has worked in a London Basement will know just how important frequent patches of sky are when winter is lurking on.
However, I am less convinced as to why you would live there. Way to sterile when you
have beautiful streets in character filled areas. I mean where would the pub be with the beams that are so low you ‘plonk’ your head on the way to the bar, where is the uneven footpath and the dodgy guy with the Big Issue going to sit? All the things that make London a challenge to live in but that also makes it a unique spot are not present in this new and planned space in London.
As I said just a little bit peculiar!
Well today was great fun but oh so soggy! It was the very famous boat race between Cambridge University and Oxford. It
has been going for I think, 154 years. In 2007 Cambridge won – so yippee. But sadly as we all stood on the banks of the Thames on a really wet and drizzly day Oxford thrashed Cambridge.
So this is clearly a bit disappointing for those fellas who have been training their socks off for the last year in the Cambridge team. However, as a spectator it was super exciting to have a team to cheer for! And not just an arbitry choice on the day but one that represents a tiny bit of me.
Home is such a curious concept. What is it that makes a place your home?
Is it where you grew up and went to school?
Is it where your family, friends and parents live? My parents live in Melbourne, so to my brother and his growing family. However, this one is tricky when I think about my friends. As it seems that I now have friends dotted about the world – so they are probably not a greater marker for where my home is.
This weekend I am spending a few days in London. So, while I do feel at home here; I can get about central london without a map, tube and buses don’t fuss me. But I am uncertain that it is truly my home. I sat on the tube today and it is not a soft city. You are constantly surrounded by people but always seem to be alone.
As I think about this it may well be that home is not a single place. But a cluster of emotions that occur when you are with people you care about and that care about you. When you are held in an embrace, a friend smiles at you in a knowing way, another laughs, when your Dad and Mum just ring. All these things are part of what creates the cluster of feelings that make you feel at home within your own skin.
Only in the UK can you be in the centre of Paris at 2pm and back in Cambridge no less than 4 and 1/2 hours later! Amazing really. Although this amazement may in part be due to the Australian in me.
I can travel 5 hours and about 3438km by air from Melbourne and find myself in Perth where everyone speaks the same language, eats the same food and quite possibly the only difference is that the sunsets over the ocean. Not exactly profound for what is probably ten times the distance between London and Paris.
Anyway I had a brilliant time. Certainly, a contributing factor to the fun and games was being there with some locals. What a difference that makes.
I suffered no anxious moments when my meal arrived. Not once did I glance at my plate surprised to find pork when I expected lamb. We visited a number of cool restaurants in the Marais strolled about what is a truly lovely city.
No it was complete bliss!
Although one of the unforeseen consequences of all of this local knowledge is that my trousers are definitely tighter and my belt on one notch wider. Oh well – best go running…… tomorrow.
I think I like Easter for all the wrong reasons. In fact I am fairly certain of this.
I never give anything up before; I have friends that give up a combination of shopping, chocolate and sometimes coffee or worse yet all 3. My goodness I would be a corner rocking if that were the case or I guess really thin from all of the running I would have to do to manage all of the extra stress!
So in that sense I do Lent all wrong and then when the Easter weekend creeps in. I am focused on the marvelous 4 day holiday and the steaming, yumminess of hot cross buns.
So this Easter I am jumping onto the Eurostar for a weekend in Paris with friends. But as has been pointed out I may have to trade my desire for hot cross buns for a Pain au Chocolate and an espresso!
I am absolutely certain I shall survive!
Ah yes another blog with some crazy acronym in the title. It is true that this MBA is definitely about learning the business jargon and on top of that we have the JBS lingo to contend with as well.
So GCP – stands for Global Consulting Project. I think it use to go by another name but I guess another feature of jargon is that it rather a dynamic form of language. Every few years it likes to reinvent itself just to stop us all becoming complacent.
I am so pleased with my project. I am getting to work with Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide, plus some really clever MBA’s. Super cool really and exciting. Although, it is certainly looking like some serious work…..
But, not only are we popping down to London for interviews but are likely to be going to Amsterdam. Fun huh!
Always good to focus on the fun stuff when you get the chance – that way the mountains of interviews coming along may seem way scary and really overwhelming!
I definitely think this is my special skill.
Other people can cook, paint, sail, are amazing at excel (god I still get twitchy if I have to open that computer program), some can dash about on roller blades, sing in tune to the radio. None of things would I say I do with any aplomb.
But it would seem that packing is something I am good at. This is not something I think women really do that well. I mean how often do you see Women with enormous pink suitcases in Heathrow, filled to the brim, zip bulging. This is clearly a rhetorical question – as the answer is all the time! Although, I do think whomever came up with the wheely suitcase should be given a major pat on the back as he or she has certainly saved many people some rather nasty back pain!
I am off to Paris tomorrow morning with some friends. Yippee! And my task is to fit 5 days worth of stuff into an easy to carry bag.
So I had better get my thinking cap on – to make sure that everything fits, matches and is clean!
It seems like an age ago that I sat in my first class at JBS and I am now at the end of my second term. Incredible really. Who would have thought I would make it this far!
In one of these first class I first heard that “uncertainty is a shape”. A strange phrase I know but it does some how make uncertainty tangible. And it would be fair to say that I am surrounded by uncertainty at the moment. However, I am not alone.
We are all worried about what job we will have, where we will be living and quite frankly whether all of this will pay off.
I sat with a friend just last week as she worried out loud about all of these things.
Today I sat with this same friend and her world has turned on a pin. She has a super exciting potential job on the verge of delivery, this immediately settles where she will live.
Amazing how that messy uncertainty can suddenly have shape.
Sex is everywhere but no where round me – The Whitlams
For those that don’t know, this is a line from a song called You sound like Louis Burdette. By the absolutely brilliant band called the Whitlams. You’ve gotta love a band who names itself after the Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, who was famously dismissed by the Governor General in 1975. Interesting…
Anyway…..
On many street corners at the moment there are couples staring meaningful into each others eyes, the dining hall at Queens’ seems to be a buzz of undergraduate hand holding and meaningful smiles. All rather wonderful.
But what of the MBA and Love? You would think that such an intense environment would lead to trysts and romance at every opportunity. There are even stories, possibly urban myths, of female MBAs who commit themselves to the year in search of an MRS and there are the enterprising fellas at Insead have even written a case – which I have to say is a very entertaining read.
It would seem that there is definitely love abounding, people coupling up and living together.
But what does this all have to do with the humble potato, the SPUD?
Well we have DINKS (double income no kids), SINKS (single income no kids) and now we have SPUDS (single person urban dwelling) and something or someone called Freemales. I am not so sure I know what a Freemale is actually?! But I am not so sure I want to be one. In an article in the Age this morning apparently 51.4% of women are opting for the single life and SPUDs account for 25% of all dwellings in Australia.
I am not so sure that women are opting to be single really, and that being said I am not sure I want to be a SPUD. Surely they could have chosen a more alluring vegetable. I guess though I should be super pleased they did not chose an acronym that spells Brussel Sprout or Cabbage!
Jeeepers we are in serious trouble.
One of the electives I am doing is on Climate Leadership this term. I think it is about as herbal and hippie as an MBA can get. However, the fact that it is making its presence known on such a course speaks of the seriousness of the global warming effects and that solutions and actions are needed.
Put very basically if things keep going certain parts of the world are going to sink beneath water, the temperature is going to continue to rise and we are essentially going to roast ourselves. Cheerful!
One of the greatest problems for effecting change is that no one is certain of anything – well with the exception that it is not good and the outcome is also going to be catastrophic if nothing is done. And even if we achieved all targets today the Climate would take decades to return to an equilibrium state. It really is enough to make you give up!
However, my sense is that with the growing awareness at all levels of society mass action is not far away. And at the very least I am going to continue to ride my bike, try to remember to turn plugs off, turn lights off when I leave a room and wash my clothes in cool water.
I am definitely of the belief that every little bit helps.
