A Perfect Mix

This weekend was remarkable. It was the perfect mix of relaxation, time to myself, and time with friends.

I celebrated the 4th of July with a chocolate muffin instead of fireworks...both fulfill completely different satisfaction quarters, but it was so delicious! I also watched a really cute and informative movie called Arctic Tale. I didn't realize how much the effects of global warming were affecting the lives of Polar Bears, Walruses, and other animals of the North... They mentioned that in the last two decades, 20% of the ice in the north has disappeared, and by 2040 (that's only 30 more years...), if trends continue as they are now, all the ice will disappear completely! The animals up there are having a hard time finding food and have to go for longer periods without it, also babies have to be weaned from there mothers a year before they normally would due to lack of food. My new favorite website is: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/, as there are so many eye-opening stories and pieces of news on it.

Saturday was filled with shopping, and sales galore are filling are stores here in Ireland! I've never seen such a thing here (it's not as normal as it is in the States for sales to occur...!). I bought some new exercise shorts for the gym and a few bits and pieces of summertime clothes. I also splurged on some cute cards that weren't on sale, but I was in a world of my own when i discovered an entire floor dedicated to cards and little gifts! I probably spent an hour or two just wandering around Eason's looking at the cards...! Saturday night, I met up with friends who I play table tennis with (they're from France) and it was a load of fun, just chatting back and forth in a cool church bar (a protestant church renovated into a bar/disco club...). It was handy too because they live in the next apartment block to me, so getting home in a taxi with three people was much easier than just myself!

Sunday was a relaxing day in the morning, and I met my friend, Sonja, for a walk through Phoenix Park. Would be nice to ride bikes through the 15 acre park, but I have to get a bike first...! I ended my evening with a lovely Italian ice cream from my favorite Italian restaurant in Temple Bar... :)

Ka-Boom! Sniffle, Sniffle...

The Fourth of July comes and goes yet another year while I'm abroad. I have missed the last three Redding fireworks shows (my hometown). It's my favorite holiday of all time too... I think the colors are beautiful and the show spectacular. I become fascinated and awestruck when watching the fireworks up in the dark sky, like a little girl.

This year, there are a lot of fires near and in Redding that have the sky smokey and the air quality quite bad. If the city is still allowed to go through with the fireworks show, the obstructions will definitely make for a slightly less enjoyable fireworks display... I hope the fires get contained soon, especially for all the evacuated homeowners' sake.

At that thought, it makes me contemplate what are the most important things I would put into a backpack if I had notice to leave my home. Definitely would put my laptop in there, there's so many pictures and other important files stored on there (which reminds me, I should back things up again, haven't done that in a couple months...). I'd grab my purse (including my phone and wallet and credit cards). My table tennis bat would need to go in the backpack for sure. And probably a couple shirts and a couple pair of pants so I could get by at work and on the weekends. Also my electric toothbrush, that's always important in today's society! I guess I don't have all that much material things that are vitally important to me here (although my closet would seemingly depict otherwise...).

Maybe I should look into a spring clean of the things I do own this weekend.

Drizzle, Drizzle

Sideways, frontways, downways, anyway...! It's raining here in Dublin, and the sky was dark and gray all this summer's week. I think that contributed to the feeling of this week dragging on and on, especially today because the sun didn't bother to show it's face today, not even once.

I still managed to have a good time this week, after work was over that is... Monday was Table Tennis training and Wednesday was also supposed to be Table Tennis training, but instead, I met my aunt and her niece and her niece's friend for dinner at, where else, but our Italian restaurant! It was really nice. The friend was hilarious, and the niece who I haven't seen in I don't know how long, is really sweet, and very well-mannered. I sent a text to her dad saying I'd like to plan a trip down to see all of them sometime, that would be fun.

Monday and Tuesday I had great chat conversations with my friend from Poland, I was laughing the whole time we were chatting! I'm planning to visit Romek at the end of August, and I'm really looking forward to that trip a lot. On top of getting to have great company, Poland is supposed to be beautiful and full of Medieval castles and Alp-like mountains. I'm going to the southern area, Krakow, which you can see more of the countryside. The capital, Warsaw is just like any other big city, so I'm very happy that Romek lives near the nice part of the country. And have you ever looked on a map? Poland's pretty big! There's so much about Europe that I have yet to discover...!

Great!

This weekend was wonderful and fun after Friday was over and behind me. I had a nice chat with my friend, Dustin, on Friday night, and he really cheered me up. Saturday I just had a relaxing day, sleeping in and going for a walk by the sea. Sunday was busy, I learned to cook a special rice dish from Mauritius (where my friend is from) and it was really tasty - and I can bring the leftovers to work for lunch and save myself some lunch money! After that I met another friend for a coffee and had a nice chat. To follow, my dad and I watched the final Euro 2008 championship soccer match together. He called me and we stayed on the phone watching it together. It was interesting to watch a game that way with someone, but it was quite nice! I really enjoyed having his "company" :-)

I also looked into iPods -- I would really like an 8GB Green or Turquoise Nano, ...that and a bicycle are my current wish list items. So, if any rich people out there are looking to buy anything for someone, I'd like to put my name in the hat...!

TGIF

I'm so glad it's Friday. I need time to recharge myself and to think about life. This has been a rough week. My head is heavy, my eyes are tired, and my back and shoulders hurt... I hope to have a peaceful and restful night tonight.

Negative Energy >:-[

I don't normally complain on my blog, but today has me steaming with negative energy.

Whoever coined the phrase: "There's no such thing as failure, only feedback" clearly wasn't having to deal with trying to engage employees who don't want anything to do with improving their workplace's results from the American Gallup survey.

I thought this job duty would be fun. I'd intended to make sure everyone understood what constitutes each question, and I also had some fun activities that I thought would help people get more in touch with how important they are for the bank, and also ways to come up with ideas that would improve morale and overall happiness in the workplace and with their work. But not one person showed any interest, as usual. This was my second time holding this type of meeting, and I thought by being prepared with things to do, that it would help stimulate positive conversation and get people thinking about the kinds of things we might be able to do something about (rather than them just complaining about things that are out of our control to change). One girl was great and kept intercepting everyone's negativity with a few ideas, which helped keep the meeting somewhat at bay, but it really was just completely disheartening and unfulfilling to host this meeting where no one wants to be there, most people try to avoid coming to the meetings, and the atmosphere reeks of this attitude.

I feel like I fail in being a good leader... A good leader should be able to pull everyone out of this funk and engage others just by their words and enthusiastic thoughts... Mine weren't strong enough :-(

Table Tennis!

I'd forgotten how much I love playing table tennis until this week. After renovating the gym for two months where they have table tennis (so, that meant no access to playing the game) and after my trip to Peru, I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. I get to laugh and smile and have a really good time with all my table tennis friends, old and new, and I really enjoy that. I met a couple tonight who came to play for the first time at this gym, and they seem really nice (from Poland... lately so many people I meet are from Poland and they have all been incredibly nice and fun people). The girl and I were talking about taking classes at the gym together, which I think would be a lot of fun, especially having someone in the class to giggle with each other when we can't keep up with the instructor! The gym membership is really expensive, but to keep playing table tennis, I will have to now join the gym (a request the gym is making...). However, this might turn out to be a good thing, as the classes will enable me to meet people and keep healthy, while also continuing with my table tennis. The other gym I go to doesn't have classes and of course doesn't have table tennis... So, decision made, I will fork out a load of money for my sanity, health, and entertainment :)