Monthly Archives: October 2008

A shanti shanti Sunday

Posted on October 26, 2008 by | 1 Comment

Bloody hell it was a bit of stretch this morning I have to say.

As part of my quest for longer hamstrings and some sort of core stability I went along to 90 minutes of Hatha Yoga.

The instructor had the room set at 30 degrees – so even without the exertion of trying to twist myself into enormous knots I was boiling hot. Then there was also the chanting. oh my goodness! At the best of times I am not so good at the hmmm, ummm thing. But the shanti, shanti, shanti chanting was just too much on a Sunday morning. I mean who can take that seriously when you have your chin slammed into your knee?

That being said I have a deep pain in my butt and some serious aching in my legs so there must be something in it!

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A day looking up

Posted on October 26, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Well I have spent today looking up.

Looking up at the first spiral staircase which is to found in the Queens House at Greenwich.

Looking up at the ceiling of the painted room in the Old Royal Navy College, not to mention the beautiful chapel ceiling.

And every now and then, I looked up and marvelled at a sliver, a small slice of pale blue sky.

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whoops

Posted on October 24, 2008 by | Leave a comment

I was being so virtuous last Sunday. I was up, dressed and sipping coffee at 9 in the morning – bright and sparky ready to get on with some of the work the moonlighting job. This is opposed to the real job which keeps me out of mischief Monday to Friday…. any way I digress!

So you get the picture.

There I was working away with my colleague on this paper we have to write – drinking coffee. Nothing unusual about this scenario. I mean I would not have survived the last year if I could not partake of coffee while tip-tapping away. So you can imagine my complete horror when I whacked my cup and it sploshed its self all over my key board.Let me tell you there was more than a sharp intake of breath!

Trying not to panic in front of my new workmate (not wanting to expose the completely irrational attachment I have to my computer to early in the getting to know you phase) but boy I was not happy on the inside…….Anyway I did what all logical and rational people do I turned it up side down, ripped out the battery, found a hairdryer and tried to dry it out …

So you can imagine the trepidation with which I turned it on a few hours later. Expecting smoke, sizzling or worse yet nothing….

It turned on and with the exception of the ‘o’ which didn’t work, all was well. To be honest though life without an ‘o’ is tough. I can’t even sign my name at the bottom of an email. To my rapturous surprise it would seem the ‘o’ was only lost for a week. And so it would seem that my computer will see another day with a complement of vowels!

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Lets get cracking!

Posted on October 24, 2008 by | Leave a comment

End of my second week in the work force – althought not feeling very action or very force like at the moment.

It is that absolute catch 22 situation where you have too much time to wonder and ponder, when really all you want to do is get cracking! I can guarantee that in a few months I will be completely desperate for a day reading file upon file or meeting, chatting and getting to know other members of the team.

So while I am not very excited at work. There has been a fair bit of activity in my bank account. I got paid! For the first time in a long time someone paid me for doing something. An amazing feeling! And while it was not an enormous sum with zillions of zeros it may as well have been. The truly odd thing is that after months of promising myself…. when I get paid I will treat myself to….. I am pretty happy for the full sum to sit in the bank for a little while. Clearly this is ever so risky with the state of the banks – but hey I am a risk taker!

And despite not feeling stretched or strained mentally I am really tired on this Friday evening. So will tuck myself up with a book in the knowledge that I have been paid and that I will have to go back on Monday!

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Amazing

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | 4 Comments

There are loads of amazing and incredible things that happen in life.

They are described as miracles or flukes quite often. Well this morning I had my own personal ‘event’.

Today, crashing through the postbox came the much awaited marks of the MBA. We received an email mid week to confirm that we had succeeded in passing as confirmed by the external examiners board. But what I certainly didn’t expect was the little extra letter tucked inside.

Now, there is no ranking or specific grading grouping. You either pass or get into or onto the Directors List.  The Directors List is the top 10% of the class. And I am sure the astute amongst you will realise that all this preamble and explaination leads to the next sentence quite naturally.

I MADE IT ONTO THE DIRECTOR LIST……

I am genuinly amazed, humbled and fundementally surprised. The MBA is full of so many bright and clever people and I can’t quite believe that I can cut the mustard with them!

Anyway, there you are. I am thrilled.

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Home sweet home… for now

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | 1 Comment

So this is my street – pretty autumn leaves – my flat is the one the one just below the pavement!

This is the hall way. My room is the third door on the left. Just after the Piano is the Kitchen on the right, and then the next on the right is the living room. The door at the end is my bathroom.

This is the kitchen.

The door in the right corner is the Laundry.

This is the living room – it looks out onto a pretty little strip of Garden.

My bathroom – yep it is all mine….. so fantastic after sharing with some many at Queens’.             

And of course my lovely bedroom.

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ironing

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | Leave a comment

For the past year I have been pretty much ironing free. Joyful I know! My relaunch into the working world means that I am now having to find smart clothes to wear everyday. Not just once a week or every now and then.

Each morning I stare at my wardrobe considering the options and pondering the matching potential. But as I do my washing this Saturday morning I am thinking that I will have to make sure I diversify my top situation to include less shirts. I am going to be ironing for most of the weekend!!!!!

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made it

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Well it would appear I have made it to the end of my first week back. It has been at times super interesting, and at other times completely boring – such is the first week really.

Some of the bits of the MBA have already come in handy – the strategy lectures ‘Stuck in the Middle’ scenario has been haunting me as I try and figure out really what should be happening to a particular clinical service. The other phrase is – ‘what will drag its dead body out of the market’…. Anyway, so it would seem that all of the time effort and energy expended on the MBA appears to be paying off at the moment.

Excellent.

It is odd getting up every day though.. and getting to know the people on the same routine as you. There are the builders who seem to have their first cup of tea on the footpath at 7.45, the homeless people leaving the shelter, the lady who lights up the minute she gets out of the tube and of course those that are head down, ploughing through the people. This group is particularly scary – you absolutely have to get out of there way.

All in all it has been a good week.

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….

Posted on October 13, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Made it to work, made it through the day, made it home again… and the only thing that went wrong was that I had my knickers on inside out for half the day!

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Return to work

Posted on October 12, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Well lets see……

Clothes ready?

Hair washed and dried?

Oyster card sorted?

Random bits of paper for HR?

Paper, pens?

Okay looks like we will be good to go! Tomorrow when my alarm goes off, alarmingly early I am sure I will have forgotten something important and will be seen flying out the door just in time.

Tomorrow is my first day back in the working, tax paying, income generating world.

Yippeee!

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