cowper street

I arrived to London this morning at 6:30 AM and was picked up by JJ, who then brought me to the AIESEC UK national office, which is awesome, by the way. Big windowns, AIESEC stuff everywhere, a comfy leather couch and an air of working hard and playing hard won me over... not that I was worried. :)

Now, I'm just waiting for the rest of my team to arrive before we start the agenda for the weekend! I can't wait...

We're leaving for St. Petersburg on Monday.

of stress, visas and allegiances

currently in the midst of a four-day stress-induced spiral of insanity, meetings and e-mails.

man oh man am i earning my two week working vacation in london and st. pete... 48 hours until liftoff. is it bad that i'm counting down the hours?

my russian visa looks spectacular on my passport, by the way. i'm also starting to run out of room for stamps... only five pages left... not bad for nine months of nomading.

my new abaya is gorgeous and the desire to wear it during global village in st. pete has triggered yet another identity question: which country? at the conference, i'm clearly representing the UK. but i also feel a strong allegiance to my current AIESEC country and representing it at the conf, especially because a member/MCVPe is also attending and i'll be in my protective mother/MC role. for the next three months, i'm at a total of three hats: united states, qatar, united kingdom... when i'm in qatar or the us or the uk, it's easy to know which one i should be at the moment. but what about when i'm on fourth party soil?

summer!

I have officially declared summer in Doha. It is currently 28C outside (that's 82F for you crazy americans). I wish I could be at the beach, but alas there's work to do and lunches and coffees to attend.

[Countdown: London - FIVE DAYS; St. Petersburg - nine days; Moo arriving - 20 days; My birthday - 28 days... it's going to be a busy month!]

march!

March 1st always means spring to me. In Wisconsin, we could rarely see the grass through the layers of snow and ice on March 1st, but today when I woke up, a nice 75F breeze was blowing in through my open balcony door, sunlight slanted in and made my bed toasty warm, my room was tidy and clean. Today feels like the beginning of something.

Countdowns:
1.5 weeks until I'm in London with my favorite people
2 weeks until St. Petersburg for EuroXPRO with those same awesome people
4 weeks until Annika arrives in Doha
5 weeks until my 23rd birthday (seriously?)