admin 2

amazing. after i send an email to the guy saying we really didn't him to send us letters to inform us of stuff we already knew about through email, what happens? another board member goes and says he can't live without the official letter. not in those words, but still. not only that, but despite the meeting being in over 2 weeks, he wanted the letter ASAP! my god. what a waste of paper. whatever happened to being green?

Mamma Mia!

another birthday present i got was a ticket to the Mamma Mia! show. so last Thursday, i went to see it with 2 friends. it was definitely much better than the movie! first, the orchestra: wow. they played really well. and the set was great. well thought out, it did everything it needed to do that the movie backdrop, while nice, failed to do. and obviously, the singing was much better. also, as it was a live performance, you could hear lots of people from the audience joining in when the more popular songs were being sung (guilty as charged). it was really nice.

it was a great show. my mother would really have enjoyed it.

love admin

i'm member of the board of my condo and so there was an exchange of emails, recently, to agree on a date for a meeting to prepare the AGM. we agreed on a date. fine. then, yesterday, i get this letter confirming said meeting (which, as far as i'm concerned is a total waste of paper, time and resources, seen as there's only one other board member and there was no confusion of any kind - but hey, i guess they have to earn their money somehow...), not only on a totally different date, but also one that doesn't exist! even more of a waste, then. so i've just send an email back to the guy in charge explaining that he'd got it wrong, please confirm originally agreed-on date, please refrain from sending another letter to confirm as email amply suffices. let's hope he gets the message.

cute

i was walking home yesterday when i saw a mother and daughter walking towards me. the girl cannot have been more than 3 years old. anyway, she saw me and starting running towards me with her arms wide open. then she basically hugged my legs (i'd stopped walking, by this point). i said hello, she said hello. then she let go and i wished her a good day. she didn't say anything but her mother smiled at me and wished me a good day back. i'd never met either of them, but that kid was so cute! and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling for the rest of the afternoon.

a new direction

i had a meeting with my boss the other day, following up on our last talk about my taking on a new position within the school. as he'd said, it was a done deal and he basically just explained my duties in detail (over about half an hour). it was funny, cos when he later asked the main person in charge to come in and add to what he'd said - which was difficult, seen as he had no idea what i'd been told thus far - he uttered two sentences and that was it. but i'd much rather know too much than not enough. still, it was a bit daunting, cos my boss kept coming up with new ideas of things to do and services to offer, which was all very nice and well, but seemed a bit much considering i'm walking into something totally new. i'm completely capable, it's not that. it's just that i can just feel i'll be thrown in at the deep end... then again, that is the best way to learn!

so, the new contract will come into effect on May 1st, and then things will be officialised a couple of months later, when i've got into the swing of things. well, all of things once i've signed the formal contract, of course. one thing at the time.

losing someone

i went in to see my bank manager this morning. at the end of the meeting, i asked how she was doing (we've know each other for about 25 years, so all our meetings end with a good 20-mn chat about our respective families). unfortunately, she wasn't doing very well.

it turns out that last year was pretty tough for her family, as both her mother and her nephew got cancer. while they both recovered, her mother now seems to be sick again, and as she lives 500 km away, she's been driving back and forth a lot lately. she told me all this and then she suddenly apologised. the reason she'd said anything, she explained, was that she felt she could and that i'd understand. it was fine, i said, and i did. understand. in fact, i was trying very hard not to cry.

it is a fact that while my friends all know about my mother's death, only the people who have themselves lost a parent actually get it. i'm not saying the others don't understand the concept, it's just that after a while, they 'switch off'. not on purpose, but it still happens. i generally feel a lot more comfortable talking about my mother's death to relative strangers who are in the same situation. i mean, i once had a very good friend of mine ask me to say the words 'passed away' instead of 'died', cos it was, well, less shocking. and as i told him, no amount of time that passes can possibly make it less shocking, so no, i would not say she'd passed away cos as far as i was concerned, her death was tragic. more than 5 years may have passed, but i still think about it every day.

laying down the law

2 weeks ago, i had a chat with a friend of mine. he was seriously doing my head in with his attitude. well, no, attitude is not the right word. let's just say that he likes to charm everyone. it's just that sometimes, especially if there's an audience, it takes on huge proportions. for people who don't know him, it's ok, i guess; they either really like him or really don't. but for me, it's just annoying, cos i know it's all fake, but i also know how nice he really is. so 2 weeks ago, i sat him down and basically told him to stop his 'act' around me.

i hadn't seen him since, so i had no idea what to expect. he'd seemed to get the message, but you never know... so it was really nice to see that he'd understood what i'd said when i saw him last night. he was nice and pleasant and, more importantly, real. and it was funny cos at one point, he thought he'd messed up and he started to panic, but i reassured him that my reaction had nothing to do with what he'd said. i think S. also appreciated the change, cos i'm sure i'm not the only one who was annoyed.

make-up lesson

last night, i was finally able to use my birthday present: a make-up session. so four of us girls met at the local Body Shop and were introduced to the art of which brush to use for which part of the face and for which type of make-up; what colours to choose (and so, i will never wear anything red, pink, light blue or green again); how to apply the various creams and powders, etc. it was fun! especially when we had to answer questions such as: so, what foundation/colour/other do you normally use? most of us barely ever wear anything, save a little mascara and some lipstick, so we couldn't say much to that.

we had all decided that we wanted to keep a natural look and mostly, we did. but when it came to lipstick, i decided i wanted to try real red - you know, the one you see in movies. it was funny. S. and M. thought it looked amazing on me, but T. and i agreed that it was perhaps a bit much (and, let's face it, not really in accordance to the rest of my natural look). T. argued that for people who knew me, it would be too much of a shock. so we toned it down so it became pinkish and sparkly. that was more like it!

and so there we were, after three hours (learning takes time!): 4 gorgeously made-up women. we'd dressed up too, of course, and so when we came out of there, we made our way to a wine bar in the old town, where Mr. J. joined us and could only confirm how wonderful we looked. so all in all, a success!

4 years

i've just realised that i've been maintaining this blog for over 4 years. wow.

stop thinking

my sister's advice. which i'd gladly follow, cos it's not like i haven't thought about it quite a few times. but i can't. it was always bad, and it's getting worse. for a few weeks now, i've felt the neurons physically hitting each other in my brain, so much i think. and it's painful. not the kind of pain that aspirin takes away. the kind that i felt when my Grinberg method man was 'massaging' my head (more like pressing on where it was hurting). it's like a slow and very contained explosion right in the centre of my brain - although right now this second, it seems to have migrated to the upper right hand side. and i don't know how to stop it. i've tried repeating a mantra over and over again, which used to work (but hasn't since i had that song stuck in my head all night in the moutains 2 weeks ago, and thus didn't sleep). not anymore. and i'm completely incapable of thinking of nothing, like a blank/empty space. not possible. never was. and although i now seem to manage to put myself to sleep although i worry about stuff, there are times where i really lose all perspective and my thoughts seem to wage an internal war against each other in my head.

right, i'm going swimming. maybe that'll help.

unemployment

the January numbers were up on Friday and they're a little scary. in one month, around 90,000 people have lost their job in France. i thought that was a pretty high number, until they compared with some other European countries: Spain, just under 200,000, and Germany... nearly 400,000! in one month. this is where i stop complaining about having too much work at the moment.