Home Away From Home

This class makes my head spin. There is just so much I want to do that I can not juggle it all when I sit in this class. They talk about how to lead and govern successfull non profit enterprises. And I know I should have done this course last semester so that I would have had time to implement the ideas I have during class. Resources, building capacity, measuring your performance, aligning your goals with your strategy. And my head spins... I do charts, I take notes. Totally unrelated with the case but typically arising from it. Do I build a business plan, ask fundraising to build capacity and then hire people. Or should I hire first, and then fundraise? Can I afford to loose 6 months of my attention with so many urgent projects on the ground needing my attention? When will I find someone that can replicate half my passion, my time and my ideas? My mum is strained on Admin stuff, I am in School, the Nuns are over stretched by life in general and claim there are no good people...

I d on't have a laptop but I have a notepad.  Some moments in life, nothing will keep me away from writing.  As I finally switch on the TV, eager to see Obama's inauguration speech, live celebrations are still going on and no one wants to interrupt them.  It is the start of the Neighborhood Ball and Obama does not miss out a chance of appealing to the spirit of the word neighbor.  Because "what pulls us together is greater than what drives us apart" and "together e can change America".  It is hard not to believe and you realize what the words translate to as you hear "At last" from the heart and voice of Beyonce.  The next song is truly reflective of the feeling "Sky is still the limit".  With Obama, America seems to feel a whole new world of opportunity has been created.  The limit of the sky seems to have shifted upwards.  At last, America has a true chance, nationally and internationally, to be what everyone wanted it to be. Sting, Ste...

It is a funny expression I would say. The first 4 days at HBS are what we call the shopping period. You can basically go around classes, listen to what professors say, to what the cases are, check who is in the class. For the first 2 days, professors won’t even mind if you walk in and out or if you are clueless about the case. That must be the reason why I have not started any of my 2 cases for tomorrow at 11.30pm. I was meant not to be shopping but one of the classes today went so bad that I will be shopping tomorrow. I will join the herd and see how it ends up. The good thing about the shopping period is that the girls came over and we all had coffee (with borrowed milk), tea and a fifth of a brownie discussing classes amidst plans for a thousand trips this semester and a reservation for a table at Rumor next Thursday. So far so good, I like being back. Thursday will bring the lowest temperature that I ever had in Boston, -24C so we will see how I feel about being back after ...

It is weird to say that I am back home when I just landed to Boston but the truth is I missed not living out of bags on the floor. Having my own house and my own space and drawers and kitchen utensils and food in the freezer is different. And it (oddly enough) feels like home here. There is snow outside but not too much, and life seems to have slipped back to normal easy. Teeba picked me up and we ended up discussing courses until now but the jetlag did not let me go on anymore. As Yunus speaks on the back to make sure I know what tomorrow’s class is about it feels weird to think this morning I was talking to the Millennium Promise and brainstorming about international development. The grades are out and were (finally, in a way) average which probably proves the point that I spent way much time on courses last semester and enhances my will of spending ever less. I am happy to be back I guess, it is a nice feeling. It is always better to arrive than to leave…

It has been a while and you can clearly tell December was insane. I started it off sick after the amazing India trip, in a fever for a great Fundraising event in Suite where we collected over $2300 for the Technical Center. But December went on… I re-equated all I thought about working in the social sector and about how much of myself I wanted and should give to it. I still do not have an answer but I am clearly far away from where I started off. And then London, Lisbon, home. Children and Christmas, family and friends, the usual crazy rush of seeing everyone trying to make them know what I still care and being really bad at it. Leaving earlier than I wanted but with the one I wanted and having a dream and exhausting trip in Egypt. And ending the year hoping the next will be less uncertain and will let me enjoy more of life. My life is great, and I fail to feel it as such some times. I want to change that. Happy 2009!