Home Away From Home

Today, once again (as if I am famous or something) I was live on national radio. A new programme about Youth and it seems I was their first guest. It is called “Fantastic Generation” and it aims at bringing testimonials of young Portuguese doing something (arguably) fantastic around the world. Well, I did indeed have a lot going on in a lot of places: Vienna, Berlin, London, Maputo, Boston and who knows what else further. It is funny how I will always remember how my mum told me to go abroad and I was so against it. And how my dad said it was ok if I did not want to take Morgan Stanley’s offer… And how certain I was that I wanted to do this IB thing that I had never wanted before… Life turns out to be in many ways unexpected and until today has not let me down. I guess that is my piece of fantastic in the world, follow what I believe and hope it will turn out for the best. I am hoping to hear many more stories of people alike around the world and see that it was not just me wanting

I know, it has been a while, but the week before getting myself to London was insane and this week in London has had a lot going on and I could not find a lot of time to sit by the computer yet. I am still in the London side of the world, amazingly enough I truly belief it is colder here than in Boston. Interviews and Coffee Chats are going ok though rather inconclusive. I guess that was expected. I had a great breakfast this morning though, and I am not talking about food. Sitting in a room with about 20 people that think the way I do and work in a sector that I have been struggling to understand was really good. It got my brain travelling and imagining all the things I could and wish I was doing. The result is that now I have all these business cards and pages filled with notes and it means blogging may not be a priority for quite some time… But I am alive and kicking! Oh, and the baby is kicking too!! It was Patricia’s birthday yesterday, happy birthday!!!!

It’s Friday afternoon and after 45 minutes of my Hanon Virtuoso Pianist exercises I gave in to the sleepiness and hit the bed for an extended power nap. Silent phone and well deep in my duvet, I woke up 2 and a half hours later with a couple of missed calls, one from Teeba. As I try to call her back, I find her in my sofa sleeping… Yes, confusing, especially if you consider I was totally asleep still. It seems the piano was not working. Given I had just played it was very hard to believe but in fact the piano was now echoing electrical sounds throughout the house. Three days old piano not working was enough to make me be in rage about the unfairness of the subject before one of my only weekends in Boston. It seems once again I did not trust the stars, the angels or whatever you want to call it. After some hours back and forward and some (not always) friendly interactions with the personnel we brought home a brand new Yahama P85, rather than the used Korg one, better sound, better qua

After all the talk, the Piano is finally here. Yesterday, me and Teeba went straight from the airport to the store next to Berkeley College (where else to buy a music instrument) and put a down payment for a Korg digital piano. It has the benefits of a piano and a keyboard all in one, it feels like a piano, it sounds like a piano, but it is smaller than one and you can use headphones. The latter are utterly convenient for me given I have not played at all in a year and the 3 years before were dedicated to computer keyboards rather than piano keyboards… I do not have all my note sheets here, which is unfortunate but hope to get them from home soon. And tomorrow Teeba is coming to play. We decided to do it together so we would incentivize each other to play (yes, the cost factor was an issue too). So pictures tomorrowwwwwwww. Time to sleep! I am happy that I finally am learning how to prioritize.

Me and Teebs took off on Tuesday, anticipating a fun weekend and some warm weather. It is easier to be better weather than Boston but we never imagined the 35ºC (we don’t do Fahrenheit) that would greet us. If you think landing at midnight would deter us from enjoying the first night in Miami, you are wrong. The impeccable sound system in the room lead the way for a quick make up and no later than 1.30 we were at Mansion. We met Teeba’s friends and had one of the most fun nights in a long time… Pictures? Not available, hehe We started our tanning mission on Friday and we had no clue where the announced storms were. We kept the warm up for the weekend and had a (too) expensive dinner at Forge, thinking the restaurant would turn out in a club. It never did so we ended up at Mint, another one in Teeba’s endless list of clubs we were supposed to visit in our 5 nights in Miami The girls arrived Saturday and that is when my trip diary is interrupted by big blanks. I am not allowed to tell an

Me and Teeba now have a weekly meeting in our schedule named “Sara and Teeba Pretending to Work”. We decided to do it as a way of making sure we find time to socialize and catch up every week but not feel bad about not working during that time. Today was the best one we had. I decided to cook and greeted her with an amazing (I must admit it was really good) codfish pie, home-made fries and feta cheese salad. We did do some work though. She reviewed my famous cover letter and I made her read her case for class under the threat of switching off the wireless internet to prevent her from emailing rather than reading. It is questionable how she will sit awake in class after this but I will hope that works out. On my side, I know the round big nice chair is looking at me with that look “come and sit in the sun reading your case” that totally ensures that I will be asleep within 5 minutes. To be seen if I keep away from it.

When it takes you six hours to write a cover letter, what the hell happened? I can find a handful of explanations and let you decide i) I have a hard case to sell; ii) I am too full of myself and spending too much time praising my beloved skills and experience; iii) I don’t know the company well and need to spend hours educating myself first; iv) I am watching NCIS and House in parallel, v) I am a perfectionist. For the ones that know me best, I can bet you started with number v). Bernardo is clearly betting on number iv) though wondering why not my favourite Law & Order SVU. It is nice of you to think that but, even though it is true that those are pieces of me to blame, number i), ii) and iii) also apply. First, I do have a hard case to sell. As impressive at it may seem to have worked in Morgan Stanley, how do I guarantee that it is not because the market is down that I am not going back there. As impressive as it may seem to have worked on the ground in Mozambique, what does i

Today I realized how anti-social I am becoming. I dare say more than my Morgan Stanley times. Today, I actually wrote an email to Sam saying I was too tired to come to his birthday but I never had the guts to hit send. Because that is when it hit me... I really like Sam, and I never questioned going to his dinner from the moment I first saw the email and there I was, 8pm, saying I could not come. I am glad something made me change my mind because I had a good time and it was one of those relaxed dinners where you get to chat and actually get to know a bit more about people. I always like that. I guess I accepted my tiredness in the section retreat since I had no alternative, my body was telling me how truly exhausted I was. But today I had no excuse, I slept 8 hours for the last 3 nights and I am sleepier than ever! Which means that maybe if I go back to my usual 6 hours max things may get back to normal. It is a real fight I am having right now. On the one hand, I tried so hard while

I am now legally part of the state of Massachusetts. I now have my own little Mass ID. For those unaware, it is just an ID card issued by the state of Massachusetts. For those that know the drill, it means I now do not have to carry my passport at all times, scared to death of losing it given the difficulty of getting a US visa but the need of showing it each time I want to have any alcoholic drink or just enter a bar… Yeah! And it also means I can travel to Miami next weekend since I was out of passport (in the Indian embassy!)

This weekend was Section a Retreat in Martha’s Vineyard. Friday afternoon, much against my will of taking a nap, me, Shilpa, Christine and Lilly headed to Falmouth and fought Boston’s Friday afternoon commuting traffic. I must say they put up quite well with my grumpiness and eventually I started behaving like a more social animal. By the time we made it to the ferry, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and met up with other Section A people that crowded the boat. Again prevented from taking another nap, I join the group for dinner at the French Bistro. We basically found the way by following the smell of the tasty French fries. We all got together at Nancy’s later, and I was impressed to see that Section looove is still very much alive as I realized the bar was all for us! The next day woke up chilly and lazy so we decided to swap the pre-ordered bikes for mopeds and spent the afternoon driving around the Island. We left Oaks Bluffs towards Edgartown, still had time for an afternoon drink a