aka Curiosity

The Curiosity rover landed on Mars on 6 August 2012, the same day that I started back at work. That's the extent of our similarities. After two full weeks, I can honestly say that I don't have as much energy as Curiosity and unfortunately, I don't have a laser to zap rocks - or in my case, desks, laptops, printers or people. I can move faster than it does as it covers only the length of a football field a day. Of course it's much more productive during that time. I also wish I had a ChemCam, so much better than Instagram I bet. Oh, I guess we have one other thing in common - we have a mission that expires in exactly two years. But our next steps after that may be vastly different. Let's follow Curiosity's mission together....shall we?

Olympic blues

Oh how I miss the Olympics and wish we could score tickets to the sold out Paralympics which start next week. At least we will have more sports to watch on telly with driven, determined athletes. The only thing we have now are extremely unattractive Louis Vuitton ads with Michael Phelps. Sorry but there is nothing about him that screams LV. I heard that they may strip him of his medals since the ads came out on the first day outside of the ban, which means he had them taken during the ban of non-Olympics advertising. Well, I doubt they'll take his medals away - he's such the golden boy in the eyes of many. Though I will say that LV should be fined or Marc Jacobs should be slapped silly for even thinking of doing those ads - they're absolutely hideous and a deterrent to fashionistas the world over. Disgrace.

Rubbish blogger

Yes that's me. I'm so busy I haven't had time to blog. I'm rubbish unlike the cool creative chick who came up with the brilliant Feminist Ryan Gosling memes. 

Back at the Ranch (but not back in the grind)

Can the Olympics get any more exciting?!! I've been so busy with very little time to write on this blog...so many thrilling events to see live or on telly or on the live app on my iPhone! I was so addicted to swimming that I watched every event as soon as I woke up and the full replays again every night on my iPad! (Thanks BBC!) What an incredible first week which made it even harder to return to work today after 7 months off and one helluva week of sports and culture under my belt. I promise I will post a series on the Olympics soon. In the meantime, here's a play by play of my first day back at the office: Forced myself to get up after only 4 hours of sleep. Emailed new boss that I would be in about 8:30/8:45 and will he be around to meet. Emailed my team members reminding them that I am back today. At about 8, thought I should've prepared my handbag and shoes last night and not this morning when I was still half asleep (making extra sure I had brought the correct right shoe to match the left one). Had to stop for a raisin danish to go and a double macchiato...yes it's a double kind of day. Just missed three buses going my way - why do all the buses always come at the same time?! Caught a bus six minutes later and it was the slowest bus evahhh. With diversions for the Olympics, it was slower even though there wasn't much traffic in the streets (no ogling the lovely shops on Sloane Street as we diverted towards Belgravia to Hyde Park Corner)....so I finally reached my destination. Oh how I missed my walk to the office... going through Burlington Arcade and seeing if any new shops opened and smile by the glorious macaroons in the Ladurée window. Turned by the Ralph Lauren store and noticed an incredible pair of platform sandals! Really? Ralph has a cool pair of shoes? Huh...oh, the jewellers were preparing their window displays...yes, diamonds are indeed our best friends. Wow, LV has the Kusama collection in their windows. Looks like the Tate Modern but with creepy Yayoi mannequins that look exactly like her! Made a mental note to go there during lunch sometime this week. I finally walked into the office a few minutes past 9 to the smiling ladies at reception who showed me to my new desk. Laptop and phone already set up which was awesome. Many greeted me a nice welcome back. Some just looked up and shrugged. One sales guy was so surprised that I came back, he was speechless and he's never speechless. A couple just grunted so it seems most things and most people don't change. I managed to take the next hour to clean and disinfect my desk, laptop, keyboard, phone, screen and mouse. I walked around to see other teams. I introduced myself to some new people. Some new people introduced themselves to me. Some people came over from other floors to my desk to say hello. I met the new young woman sitting across from me...hmmmm she's American too but oh dear, this may get tricky. I will be nice as it's my first day back. I heard she hums and on Fridays the humming becomes whistling (??!!). My new boss was not in but he emailed me saying he had set up lunch for us tomorrow to discuss my responsibilities and areas of focus. My old boss arrived and came by to see if I would be free for lunch which of course I was...the executive head of our group came in with loads of boxes. I think he only comes in to open his mail. He walked by me three times before I called out his name and he realised I was in. Hugs and kisses and a little chatting about how my former clients love us so much now (did he mean because I had left the relationship or is it due to the tennis finals tickets they were handed?). After a great Thai lunch and talk about my old boss' potential move to California and the hot new Mexican place in London, I did a bit of housekeeping like called my property manager, the art adviser that I plan to continue working with on some cool projects and my financial adviser who had emailed me about an important company transaction. Oh by the way, I cleaned up my inbox and deleted over 3500 emails and only kept about one month's worth of emails. So if anyone emailed me even after all my notices (whose email didn't get automatically routed to proper people that I assigned certain email addresses), then they won't ever hear from me. I did manage to set up a couple of coffee talks this week and got the latest materials and presentations to get caught up on our newest services. Of course I was pulled aside to listen to some complaining...there's always the complainers and they won't ever change. They never leave or do anything about it either; they just complain. Part of my role as you know is 'therapist', always have been, always will be I suppose. One of my oldest colleagues (he's not old but he's the person I've worked with the longest in London) asked if I would have a welcome back drink downstairs. And who am I to say no to a pint on a Monday? So we went down about half 5 and watched some cycling from the Velodrome while he had 3 Magners to my single nice and cold Kronenberg. The pub landlord was happy to see me. It's good to be back.