Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Action, not words

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the UN: I want to work for that organization one day, and I truly believe that it has the potential to lead the world into a peaceful and universally prosperous future. So it pains me to witness the recent crises that the UN has suffered through, particularly with regards to its leadership in Kofi Annan, a man I greatly respect. However, issues such as the preparation of this new reform document are starting to frustrate me, and are yet another blow, I believe, to the UN's integrity.

Ultimately, I think the measure of an institution's effectiveness and relevancy has to be in its actions; does it actually change the world around it for the better? Unfortunately, the UN has become a massive, static bureaucracy that now has its largest and most important body struggling to prepare a document that will outline possible changes to the organization itself so that it might be more effective in the future. I understand the sad irony; because of the UN's structure and practices, this reform process is a necessary use of the UN's resources so that its resources can be used more appropriately. That realization does not make it any less frustrating.

Examples of organizations I consider effective are NATO (cf. Kosovo intervention) and OPEC (cf. oil incomes of member countries). These bodies act; they care less about what is actually written down, and care more about what is actually going on. I can only hope that the reforms under consideration will give the UN a new focus on action and, by throwing off the red-tape bindings of bureaucracy, help save our forests as well.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Set to go

Almost unbelievably, everything seems to be finalized for my return to the US and for starting my new job at the Bank. Today I sent off my final, contractual acceptance of the position I am taking, and I also spent 3 joyous hours sitting at the US consulate in Calgary as they issued my G-4 visa. At least I now have a pretty picture in my passport that I can flash at border guards. This final week is plodding along slowly, yet I still find it hard to grasp that I've only 2 days of work left after today. Endings and beginnings...

In other noteworthy news, I have joined the iPod club - I caved in yesterday and spoiled myself with some of my summer savings. The frugal Irish catholic in me feels horrible, but the yuppie "young professional" I am slowly becoming loves it. And doesn't feel so bad as everyone else has one as well. I really did splurge yesterday though - at the same store I bought myself a digital camera so that I can finally start documenting my life in pictures, displayed on the internet for all to see. Or, at least, shared discretely among friends. I'm hoping my first photography venture will be some gorgeous rocky mountain panoramas that I'll take if I can go scrambling this weekend (fingers crossed). I'd like to get as much of a dose of the Rockies as possible before I have to leave them.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Last week (get the ambiguity?)

And so the end is nigh. Or pretty much. I am very close to being finished with my summer contract at Nexen/OPTI, and than have a week off to look forward to before I head down to the US and become a World Banker. Pretty exciting, although it feels somewhat anti-climactic to be combining a new beginning with a tapered-out ending - I suppose that is the way of things in any case.

The trip up to the oil sands on Friday was amazing - we flew in a tiny corporate jet (smallest plane I have ever flown in - capacity 20), had gourmet meals and fantastic coffee the entire way, and then got to spend the day touring the Long Lake facilities. It was immensely satisfying to actually see the physical results of the project I have been contributing to for 4 months. One thing, however; I was able to reaffirm my conviction that I would never be able to stand living in Fort MacMurray. It is so incredibly far away from everything else that it frightens me. It is in the middle of thousands of kilometres of muskeg (basically, swamp-marsh-nastiness), and it has the worst insect infestation I have ever seen in my life. We had been standing outside of the airport for 5 minutes before the cloud of mosquitoes enveloping our group became so dense that we had trouble seeing each other, let alone breathing without the undesired protein snack.

Anyway, who am I to complain? It was a fantastic day. The rest of the weekend was pretty chill; I got a couple of suits on a great deal, spent half a thousand dollars on contacts for next year on a not-so-great deal, and went to Wildwood pub with Eoin last night for some brotherly bonding. I'm going to have to make sure I pay my dues at that place before I leave and subject myself to the horrors of American "beer".

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Presentation today

Just taking a quick moment to mention that I am making a presentation on my work for the summer today - it's going to be in front of the head people in my division, and over at the Nexen building. I am not the only person presenting, as all of the other summer students will be doing similar things as well - that, at least, is somewhat comforting. What is not so encouraging is that Kevin (the other summer student working on the finance team with me) and I were only given 2 days' notice to prepare ourselves, while the summer students working at HQ have apparently had 3 weeks.

Despite that, I am sure everything will go swimmingly. I am going out for a lunch beforehand with Kevin; we are going to grab sushi at a hip (but somewhat expensive) sushi joint called Zen 8. Then I pretty much have the day off tomorrow, as Nexen will be flying me and the rest of the summer students up to the Long Lake site (in far northern Alberta) for a tour of the oil sands project we have been working on for 4 months. It should be enlightening.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

A delayed birthday celebration

I definitely do not feel a year older, but I turned 22 on Wednesday last week while I was at Pennsic with Angelica. I had a wonderful time the night before, going around the camps with some new friends from Silver Phoenix Estmar, and the following day, my actual birthday, happened to be feast night, so I really did have a big party. Fortunately, they never made me follow through on a vague threat: "You've got to jump over the fire, it's tradition!"

Now that I am back home with my family, they are taking me out for dinner to night for a delayed celebration. I don't know how enthusiastic I actually am about turning 22, but I am not going to rant negatively about that here. I just felt I should at least write something to recognize that yes, my birthday did happen last week, and no, I did not forget my own birthday altogether.

I did not really have the chance to celebrate it with any of my peers apart from Angelica, but I guess it's not to be expected; Reid and Whan are thousands of miles away in opposite directions, Matt has gone back to the lower mainland already, and a stroke of bad luck and/or timing made me miss Pedro by a day before he took off to California again. Maybe I'll meet up with Andrew later this week. It is a bit bizarre to feel like I am going to be the last one to 'start' my new project after last semester - everybody else already seems to be on their way. My thoughts are with Angelica, I love you babe! Hope the packing for Egypt is not too overwhelming...

Monday, August 22, 2005

Mead, Minstrels and Madness

I am going to forewarn you that this will be a long post, as I have had an incredible week, and have not posted in a while as I was on holiday with Angelica. In fact, there is so much to say that I am going to make unprecedented use of subtitles.

Life
When I had last written, I was desperately trying to organize an apartment hunt for my trip to DC, and was also waiting on security clearance for my job at the World Bank. Well, on Friday last week, I signed a lease and put the money down for a room in a small townhouse in Georgetown, which will cost $725 a month - including all utilities. For location it's pretty much as good as I could get within my budget, and I will hopefully be able to walk to work in 20 minutes (although the oppressive DC heat may force me to walk very, very slowly). The room is tiny. Scarily tiny. And to get to it, I have to walk through the living room, where an older Japanese lady will be sleeping. And there is no AC. Also, no laundry facilities, but apparently it is fairly easy to use the dorm ones down the road. So it's not going to be the easiest of living situations, but it is cheap and where I need it. The room also has a quaint attraction to it, with a skylight at the top of a wee staircase that leads to a roof 'patio' of which I have exclusive use. It could grow on me. In the worst case, I will be able to find another place in January, when Angelica comes back from Egypt. I must give props here to Robert Murphy, who let me sleep on the couch in his living room while I was in DC even though I wasn't there - a lifesaver. I was also helped by one of my potential landlords, who picked me up from the airport after I arrived in a strange new city. The generosity of people will never cease to amaze me. Oh, and a week later, I got security clearance from the World Bank, so I should be finalizing my start date within the next few days.

Pennsic
This was amazing. Something like 13,000 made a temporary medieval tent town, complete with a merchant quarter, battles, parades, music, and, of course, beer. Well, actually I drank a lot of other things, including liberal swigs of the Jameson that Angelica's father was sharing with me, as well as blueberry stout (it was, indeed, very good) and mead. After Angelica picked me up from DC, we spent a night at her house in Gettysburg where her mother very kindly put together a medieval wardrobe to last me for a week, which largely consisted of tunics and baggy pants. Then we drove four hours to a campground north of Pittsburgh called 'Cooper's Lake', where I joined the camp of Silver Phoenix Estmar and shared a tent with Angelica. From that point onwards, it was only fun. Some tableaux of the amazing experiences I had there: learning to shoot a longbow, studying the roots of Irish myth and legend, singing medieval folk music around a campfire...It is utterly impossible to capture the magic of the experience I had, and I am keen to join the group again next year. Two elements of my Pennsic experience deserve, I feel, further elaboration however. First, the food. Ah, it was unbelievable. Every evening one of the families in our camp would take responsible for the feast, and feast is the only word that can fittingly describe the elaborate meals everyone prepared. Between that, and enjoying the delicacies of Cathay and Arabia served up by wenches in the merchant quarter, my belly was never left hungry or dissatisfied. The other element is the drink. Though I brought none of my own, my mug was never empty, and indeed I carried it with me everywhere I went as hosts of the various camps I would visit throughout the day were always eager to fill it to the brim. One of the more memorable (or forgotten) nights involved a mysterious juice-like drink with bubbling pop rocks called the 'Creeping Death', served by gothically inspired belly dancers at a vampire conclave. Our own camp also had a swill off one afternoon, where something like 30 beers were tasted and compared, and after which I was left to doze off embarrassingly by the campfire. I also got to spend a wonderful amount of time with Angelica.

Partings
Unfortunately, some of the news I have to share from the last week is less than joyful. After leaving Pennsic, I had to leave Angelica, and she drove me to Shady Grove metro to say goodbye before I made my way to Reagan National Airport. I am going to miss her incredibly for the next few months, but I know that her experience in Egypt is going to be wonderful. I am very grateful we had so much fun together before she leaves. I love you babe!

The Flight Back
On the flight back, I had to make a connection in Montreal. It was a tight one, so I was sprint walking to my gate to make the boarding time. As I sit down to await the boarding announcement for the flight to Calgary, who do I see but Stephen Harper! Don't know who he is? Well, then you're not Canadian. He's leader of the Canadian conservative party, right now in opposition. Of course, I had to introduce myself, which I did, and we had an interesting, if brief, conversation before boarding was announced. Just as boarding begins, my name rings out over the intercom, and when I walk up to the boarding desk, the woman behind it gives me a free business class upgrade. Lucky eh? I guess they had a few extra seats. That was nice, but much more amazingly my seat was right next to Harper's, so I spent the three hour flight between Montreal and Calgary talking to him. Well, I talked to him for more like two, as he listened to his ipod for part of the flight, but a cool experience nonetheless. Apparently he will remember me as 'The world bank kid from the plane' should I ever send him an email inquiring about positions within the Conservative party.

Koch is dead
While I was on holiday, this also happened. The death of a legend, and a sad moment in history indeed. Hungry university students throughout Philadelphia shall lament his passing.

I feel I should end it there, before I get carpal-tunnel syndrome. I am sure I left out buckets of good stuff, but to be honest I myself am still reeling from the events of the last few days, and am having too much trouble recollecting my thoughts to put them down. Let me end by saying once more that is has been incredible. It was also evidently an excellent holiday, as I feel refreshed, relaxed, energized, and as though I have accomplished a great deal. Once more unto the breach!

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Apartment Hunt

It's Paris all over again. Except this time, I don't have Kyle doing all the work for me, and I am not even in the city I am trying to find an apartment in. Every day I madly respond with my copied-and-pasted standard introduction message to tens of Cragslist postings, in the hopes that someone will think of me as a cool potential roomate.

That process is in of itself frustrating enough, but I also have to try to put together some kind of reasonable schedule for visiting these places all over DC for the day-and-a-half that I am spending in the city before I see Angelica. Right now, it is looking as though I am going to be homeless when I start my job in September. But I'm lucky.

Monday, August 08, 2005

Excited

I am very excited to see my girlfriend later this week - it feels as though it has been forever and a day since we parted, and it's going to be wonderful to spend a week with her before she leaves for Egypt. Plus, the medieval festival that we are going to with her family (Pennsic) sounds as though it will be a blast. Unfortunately, I don't have enough training to be able to join in the battles and jousting tournaments, but I should at least be able to employ my palate at the beer-tasting.

Consequently, these last three days at the office before my break are likely to pass painstakingly slowly, but there is little I can do about it but try to accomplish as much as possible towards my summer project before I leave.

The other subject occupying my mind right now is that of housing in DC - I need to find a place to live in 2 days that I am spending in the city before I head to central PA with Angelica, and I don't think it's going to be easy. I have been relentlessly perusing Craigslist for shared apartment/housing opportunities, with the hope that I can arrange numerous house visits during my short stay in DC and, ultimately, sign a lease. I think I will have at least a few possibilities lined up, but it is by no means going to be easy.

Thankfully, there should be some time for fun in DC with some of the frat boys who will be in the area, which should help to de-stress me should my apartment search become unbearingly frustrating.

There was a lot of news this weekend, so I should probably do a quick recap of the more significant items: Matt left for BC, and though I am happy for him in his new editorial venture, I'll miss having him around for beer and philosophy - hopefully we'll be able to arrange a holiday together in the near future; my Auntie Jean and her family visited last week - it was fantastic to see relatives that I have not seen since my evacuation from Indonesia, and my two younger cousins are incredibly cute :) ; my Dad, the most generous and giving person I know, gave me a business-class upgrade for my flight to the US, gave me access to the business-class lounge for my airport layovers, and said 'not to worry' about my debts to him - he wants me to be unburdened for starting my new life in DC, and also wants me to invest all of my savings on the stock market (which I'll do once I have them).

I owe my Dad (and Mom) so much, I don't even know how to begin repaying my debt to them, which is much more than the money they 'loaned' me for university. I am going to make it back to them eventually, in spite of their unbridled generosity.

If Matt is reading this, he is probably going to bitch.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

It's a rough life

Sometimes I really feel as though I am more blessed than I deserve. Then again, sometimes I feel as though I am cursed, but I suppose that life is ultimately the juxtaposition of extreme feelings, with some moderation in between, depending on how bi-polar you are. But I digress. Today is one of those days where I really do feel more blessed than I deserve.

I am generally feeling very positive as I am going to get to see Angelica very soon (yay!) and I miss her greatly. I am looking forward to starting a new career with the World Bank and am having (some) luck with my apartment search in DC. But let's invoke Buddhist philosophy and focus on the present moment, shall we? Why am I feeling remarkably positive today?

Because, God bless the corporate world, my day of work is going to consist of chilling out under the sun, partaking of the sweet scents of the forest and field, and whacking a miniscule white ball into 18 holes. Oh, hey Steve, how's it going? Why yes, I do think I will be joining you at the beer cart every third hole. What's that? Steak for dinner, eh? We should be able to wash that down quite nicely with the clubhouse brew.

All I have to do now is avoid embarrassing myself in front of my boss with my abysmal golf game.