PulpLit.net

jakarta or bust or do something else

Apologies for my extensive I Am Missingness, but here I am, toddling around work with my head cut off. Or at least appearing as such. This may go down as busiest week of my working life, which while not particularly lengthy, has been marked with distinct periods of extreme busy-ness. This week thus far is taking the proverbial cake.

The truth of the matter is that I leave tomorrow for Jakarta, and up to this point have left much too much to be done at, how you say, the Very Last Minute. Between sorting out the computer I am going to bring with me, making cds of the datasets that we need, and generally panicking about the fact that they don't have my travel authorization just yet, I come away with general confusions and disasters in my head.

But updates are due, and I hope a good deal that I will be able to update from Indonesia. Because I have never been to Asia! I am pretty jazzed for the whole adventure. More on that to come.

Skiing over the weekend was ridiculous. For real. Niels, Steve and I were a little packet of enjoyment all day Sunday, and we managed to find this in-betwixt pistes of poofiness on one corner: oh delight. We just stayed up and down this one butt lift all day, and it was more than delight, really. It was perfection. Saturday was also good. Aforementioned bass player is peut-?tre the best skiier I have ever seen. He jumped off a cliff and everything. I was highly impressed, even though he got us a bit held up when he managed to get himself stuck in a streambed. Niels was also impressed, which is clearly saying something of rather extraordinary import. The trio on Sunday, we were more on the same page, I think. There was lots of flying through the air and landing softly in the poof. Niels had one particularly impressive move, flying unwittingly off a huge dip, to go about three meters down and five meters across to the other side of the small valley. Yikes.

My day was much less dramatic, though my committment to effective skiing through powder was much increased. I think that the trouble (pay attention, Mollie reading this four years from now trying to suss out why you still can't get through four feet of fluffiness without feeling wholly out of control the whole time) is the lean-back, which is far too dramatic and large for me. But I get lazy. Tis hard work.

My hilariousness on Sunday was the fact that all morning I was having a big struggle, having to focus my brains out to just keep my silly skis together, woman. I was feeling rather discouraged come the last ride up on the lift. Out of control, off form, etc. Fortunately, I looked down and noticed, much to my incredible idiocy, the fact that my skis were, in fact, on the wrong feet. Jeepers. Who does that?

So, skiing, check.

Other major drama was the election of the director general on tuesday. Yes, indeed. This did not go our way, though the fellow who won does not, as they say, HATE us, per se. The future, though, is uncertain. Who will stay, who will go. The elected fellow announced his intention to cut 40% of staff here at HQ and move them out to regional offices. Mollie in Copenhagen? Or DC. Mollie in New Delhi? Intriguing. Will muchly depend on the comings and goings of my devoted and lovely supervisor, actually.

Departure tomorrow. Updates forthcoming.