Geeks have all the fun

Despite working all weekend, I've had a pretty great time.  "Why" you may ask.  Simple:  I got to see Melissa!!

For those of you who may not have read about it, there is a telectroscope, a glorified Web cam, set up between Brooklyn and London.  It's open 24 hours a day until 15 June and allows people on either side to see on another in almost real time. Spectacular, isn't it?!?!

On Saturday afternoon, Melissa and I decided to meet up (thanks to her finding the article seemingly hours after it had been posted) at 2 pm my time and 9 am her time.  I have to admit that when she sent me an email entitled “So when are we doing this?” tears filled my eyes and it took me about 5 minutes to read the second half of the article subsequently.  

When I arrived at the site, the queue was hovering consistently around a 30 minute wait, so I kept jumping to the back since I had about an hour to kill, but at about half one, the line surged to a staggering hour wait, so when I h=made it to the front I relinquished my place in line to the people behind me and sat at the front of the queue until Mel made it “there.”

It was so wonderful to see a face that was familiar on the other side of the glass, and even better that it was Mel.  Sure I’ve had occasional visitors, and I have friends here, but there’s something about someone you’ve known and loved for the past 7-8 years when you’ve been apart for a while.  It’s just refreshing and inspiring.  Plus, the fact that she’s near NY and I’m in London while this exhibit is running has to be a sign of something.

I also got my first DSRL camera on Saturday, and now I can hardly be bothered to come up for air.  I’ve spent the past 48 hours playing with the settings and walking around Harrow finding random things to snap.  I’m like a kid in a candy store, only more pathetic.  But it’s so much fun!!!  

Now I just have to figure out how to strategically pack all of this stuff so I can lug it all back home.  I started packing last week and have since made disgustingly little progress.  Yikes.

Conscious behaviour is a bitch

This past week has been rough.  I know that my holiday is swiftly approaching, I’ve been handed information and faced with difficult decisions, and quite frankly I still have the headache that crept into my skull last Tuesday.  It’s official.  I’m a mess.

Everything was going swimmingly until Monday when I had a chat with my boss about going forward with the company.  We had a very positive conversation about what he sees me doing in/with the company in its future which would have been fine except for the FOC (fear of commitment) in me immediately started to resurface.  You see, my boss asked me to come on board a while ago, and all systems were go in my mind with the understanding that I would be doing pretty much the same thing that I do now, only more of it and with less menial responsibility for we’ll have interns to take my place, this making my job a nice transition period in which I get paid while a figure out what it is that I am really passionate about.  I planned to stay for six months then go travel and teach English for a bit and see the corners of the world that I would hardly have the opportunity to see if I were one of those people who actually knew what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives.  However, these plans were foiled when my boss told me that he wanted me to come on board when I get back as the Assistant Director of Online PR and Marketing and also the head of our internal graphic design department.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m honored by the offer and I know that it would be an amazing opportunity, but the problem is, if I take the position, I’m leaving loose ends in my life that I’d rather not leave. I am one year away form getting my degree, I want to travel the world in real time - not just weekends at a time, and I want to not tie myself to London for the next X years simply because it’s not the city where I can live for more than another year max.  When it comes down to it, I’m a flake.  Don’t know myself well enough to pin point what I truly excel at, but I do know myself well enough to know that I constantly change my mind and interests if I’m not being challenged enough and if I don’t have the opportunity to grow in all of the directions in which I yearn to grow.  I wish this weren’t the case.

With the above being said, I’m coming back to Springfield and finishing my degree.  I know that I have the whole rest of my life to work, and I might even be able to come back to London someday in the future to pursue whichever dream is floating about in my head, but now isn’t the time for it, I don’t believe.  

Vegas, European Style

Anyone who’s ever taken a trip with me knows that I hate being a tourist. I don’t like appearing as though I’m an outsider no matter how foreign I actually am, obvious or not, and my recent trip to Amsterdam was no different.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t believe that I’m getting to experience the wonderful things that I’ve always wanted to experience, so my mind defaults to seeing the cities and wondrous places through someone else’s eyes, through the eyes of someone who’s seen it all before and still has a pristine appreciation for what is all around them. By allowing myself to do this, I think I appreciate everything on a much more personally meaningful level than if I were to try to cram every tourist activity into an amount of time that will never be able to do justice to any city, except for a little hick town of which I have no interest in visiting in the first place.

My trip to Amsterdam consisted of walking the city streets until my feet began to curse at me, picnicking alongside a lovely canal on a beautiful spring day, strolling through the red light district as the playmates posed in their windows, dinner with a few Belgian guys, perching on a park bench to watch the sun set, a couple local indulgences, and of course, shopping.

All of the sights I took in were breath taking, all of the people I met were fascinating, and all of the places I went were magnificent. I’ve never been anywhere more fit for the spring season, and I don’t know if I’ll ever find anywhere so inclined to glimmer so beautifully in the sun, creating expectations for the city that I didn’t even know that I had. Granted the food was a bit heavy and flavorless, but I’m certain the locals don’t mind and the visitors are distracted by the lure of the Vegas of Europe to complain. I myself found that I could be kept quite happy on ice-ream and stroopwaffles alone.

The Netherlands have not seen the last of me.