Read this first if you’re thinking of working in IT/management consultancy.
0630 am Alarm goes off;

0640 am Alarm goes off a second time;

0700 am Wake up with the BBC Worldservice news;

0723 am True to the patented JIT ironing system (Just In Time) I quickly iron what I’m going to wear today;

0730 am Jump in my car, hook up the mobile phone, drive to work, make plans for the day, have breakfast, check out chauffeur-driven cars and wonder what side of the car I’d sit on if I were them (right hand side seems to be the side of choice);

0900 am Although the drive can be done in an hour, I never make it in hour (except on Friday morning);

0901 am Now the day really starts, I have to make a choice, light-coloured dishwater or darker-coloured dishwater, although the choice on the machine reads ‘tea’ and ‘coffee’…

0930 am Just spent the last half hour checking my email, phoning a number of colleagues (that’s the beauty of the project work I do, my colleagues are scattered all over the country), when the first ‘emergency’ of the day comes in and life gets hectic;

1130 am Emergency solved, more email from colleagues and clients, more phonecalls from clients, quickly send my boss the latest status, make sure the temp still has work, prepare the 1 pm meeting;
1205 pm Stroll to the canteen and decide if the soup looks appetizing enough to eat (usually it doesn’t);

1230 pm Help a colleague do some lastminute stuff he needs to do;

0100 pm Help the same colleague carry truckloads of files to his car and at the same time meet my one o’clock;
0400 pm It was a productive meeting, but whilst the client can go home, I now have to do all the paperwork. Mind you, little of what was on my regular to do list today has been accomplished due to the emergency this morning. I try and do as much a possible from to do list, and make sure that everyone knows what they need to do for the next two days (I’ve got two days off);

0553 pm My brother calls, we chat for a bit and then I decide to call it a day for today;

0559 pm Say goodbye to the guys from a big IT/mngmt consultancy who share the building with us and NEVER leave before 8;

0600 pm Bugger. Just realised that I left too late or too early, at 0630 pm the bridge I have to cross opens for 10 minutes which always causes a huge traffic jam. Ah well, that’ll give me extra time to phone some colleagues to talk about the day, and I still need to return some personal calls;

0745 pm Home. Cook. Hang up laundry. Water my balcony flowers. Eat. Blog. Read. Sleep.

All in all a pretty laidback day today: only one meeting which was on site, projectmanager wasn’t on site, and I didn’t have to do overtime. I wish every day was like this
So, what do we learn from this?
a) I should get up earlier in order to avoid traffic
b) As a consultant, your workday doesn’t really start until the client goes home
c) If you’re not careful, you’re still there at un-decent hours, the work can really suck you in but is never ever done
d) If in doubt, pick ‘tea’, it’s usually marginally better than ‘coffee’….

Julia Childs, a writer and poet, died yesterday of breast cancer. In life, she kept a weblog which moved me to tears. It makes all this talk of MBA’s, loans, salaries and which school to choose look so insignificant. I’m counting my blessings and realize that I am well and truly blessed.
Read the obituary in the Guardian or Julia’s own blog.

Caught a massive headcold a couple days back and have been feeling poorly for a few days. I tried to fight it, but decided to give in to it today, figuring that’s the quickest way to get it out of my system. I’m not very skilled or experienced at being sick (and am very thankful for that) so I’m not good at this. I’m too well to spend 24 hours sleeping, but not well enough to want food, which for me is a BIG sign that I’m not well. Ah well, I’ll get over it with a couple of days rest and my trusty box of tissues at hand (mental note to self: must investigate new business idea: tissues that ARE really comfortable to use, these ones are hurting my nose).
BUT, all this lying around on couches and in bed with nothing much to do has given room for minor panic attacks. Why on earth do I want this MBA? I don’t personally know anyone in my surroundings who’s got one or sees the use for one, I’m having to sell my house (hassle), take out a loan for the amount I’m selling my house for without a good clue how I’m going to recoup the money (notwithstanding my well-thought out answer for the ‘why mba and what are your career plans after graduation’ questions). Ah well, at least I’ve given one bank manager something to talk about at the coffee machine when I walked in and asked for 100.000 euros (I can just see him standing there, telling his colleagues ‘listen to this, guys, you won’t believe this! there’s this girl walked in today, asking for a 100 grand, for some sort of qualification and she’s got no job, no house AND no way of us tracing her as she’ll be living abroad… how on earth did she think we would ever give her that amount of money!!!’).
[big sigh] Excuse the rant, it’ll blow over once I get a decent night’s sleep again…. I hate feeling poorly and I’m terrible at it!

In this case it’s Constantine Cavafy. When I left university, I started my career at a big management consultancy firm and worked my ass off. After about two years it slowly started to dawn on me, this can’t be it. There must be more to my life than just making the next deadline only for the next deadline and the next looming. And then I came across Cavafy’s Ithaka, which so eloquently says what I feel, the trip is as important as the goal, life’s about reaching goals but also about how you reach those goals and what you learn on the way.

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the journey may be long,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon–don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon–you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your journey may be long.
May there be many a summer morning
when with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind–
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptians cities
to learn, and go on learning, from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

according to today’s Sunday Times, is….. a hobby! And the geekier the better. Celebs are professing their passion for such pastimes as bird watching, playing Scrabble, knitting and astronomy. According to the article it’s connected to the trend of moving more and more towards authenticity and simplicity, and we’re increasingly connecting to the geek inside ourselves. OK, then maybe this is the time to ‘fess up to my own geeky hobby: collecting books. About books. And London. And the Grand Tour. There you have it. Can’t get much more geeky than that I suppose. [added when I finished the whole article: yes you can, apparently Johnny Cash is the ultimate in geek-chic music. It’s official: I’m in fashion!]

On a related note, I’ve been doing some research into art classes in London. I realise that I probably won’t have very much time next to the demands of my MBA, but I would like to take a few art classes to keep the creative juices flowing.

Central Saint Martin’s are offering part-time and summer courses, and the Floodlight directory lists all courses offered in London (not only art classes, but literally ALL types of courses).