Exercise is good for you

Duh! you say... Yes, I know. But never have I felt the immediate benefit of exercising as I did on Monday. I was commuting back from work, after a pretty stressful day that ended around 6:15. As I was sitting on the bus, I could feel my heart racing. Racing! I felt terrible, the stress of the day had caught up with me, added to the stress of preparing for my exam on Tuesday. I arrived home shortly before 7 and decided to immediately change and head to the gym. I was tired, didn't feel like going, but I went anyway.

I did 35 minutes of cardio, a bit of weights, and lots of stretching. On my walk back home, that's when I felt the difference. I was relaxed, physically tired but mentally energized. I showered, had a light dinner, reviewed my notes, and went to bed. I slept like a baby.

Bored

I'm bored. Bored of all this efficiency, this almost-perfect management of work-school life. The problem is, I know exactly what I'll be doing until about March 28. No surprises, no "days off", no time spent on silly or unproductive things. Except for a manicure/pedicure on March 16, 5:30 p.m. I even have to bring my laptop to Banff, I'll have a bit of homework to do.

See what I mean?

I guess I shouldn't complain, since having my weeks nicely planned out means I get everything done, usually well enough, without losing much sleep or turning to fast-food (does sushi count as fast food?). But it's boring. I miss weekend afternoons spent just strolling around the city, with no plan.

On a less boring topic, I have a meeting with the Director of the Career Management Center at school tomorrow morning. Apparently, he knows the President of the Globe Foundation and wants to see if we can start building a relationship with the Foundation towards my final project. Even though the final project is not expected to start until Spring 2008, I think it would be nice to have a chance to start some early research in September, when I have no classes. Environmental management and programs are all new to me, it wouldn't hurt to have enough time to understand the industry before writing about it ;) Last semester, when we had a get-together with all current and graduating MBA students, I spoke to a few people who had just finished their project. I didn't sense a lot of excitement, it sounded, in many cases, like they just wanted it to be over. I don't want my project to be like that. I want it to be a project I'm interested in, a project I feel proud to discuss with others.

Shoot!

My cute former neighbor (sold about a year ago) dropped by to say hi and I answer the door in my PJs. My PJs with frogs. And big tube socks because my feet were cold.

Sexy ;)

I was studying, OK?

Google, you rock!

I just discovered that you can personalize your Google homepage to add little portals to sites and services you use on a regular basis. For example, I use Google map often and now it's available every time I start my browser. Also, I've been using Google's Reader to subscribe to RSS feeds. The Reader can also be added to your homepage. I'm always amazed at the ideas coming out of that company, but giving web users the ability to create their own dashboard is fantastic. We've studied Google in my Management of Innovation class and there's no question about their ability to get the creative juices flowing. Apparently, employees have some discretionary time that they can use to work on their own little pet projects. That's a strong incentive for employees to innovate.

I'm very happy to report that my message of last night was not scrambled and accents made it through successfully. I don't think I'll start writing every post in French, but sometimes, it feels right to tell a story using my mother tongue.

We have a new resource at the Career Management Center (CMC, at school) who, so far, has greatly impressed me. I had a quick chat with her during our dinner at the Vancouver Club a few weeks ago and told her a bit about my plans for the future. I also told her about my interest in green technology. She has a background in environmental science, so my interest truly resonated with her. She's been forwarding me information about conferences and workshops related to sustainability and the environment. Last week, she set a ticket aside for me to The Sustainable Living Expo in March. Then, she also told me about the fact that the school had contacts within the Globe Foundation. If I was interested, I could look into doing my final project for them.

Wow!

Et si j'écrivais parfois en français?

Reste à voir comment Blogger va vous communiquer les accents... Un essai court, au cas où le message en prend pour son rhume :-)

Bon film ce soir, pas très joyeux, mais c'est un peu normal. Difficile de trouver de rire quand il s'agit du Rwanda. Vous avez probablement deviné, il s'agit du film Un dimanche à Kigali avec Luc Picard et la très belle Fatou N'Diaye (non pas Rwandaise, mais Sénégalaise, qui vit en France depuis qu'elle a huit ans). C'était bien tourné, on y parlait de l'histoire des gens qui ont vécu le génocide, de ceux qui l'ont exécuté. Pas facile de constater comment un être humain peut changer du jour au lendemain, sous une influence démoniaque.

Bon, on y va. Souhaitez bonne chance aux accents!

What is your life about?

I ran a little experiment this morning: I went back through one year of posts and added labels to find out what were the topics I would regularly talk about. The result was somewhat revealing. The #1 label for my posts? "friends", with 27 posts. Now that's good, it reflects how important it is for me to spend time with my friends. Now let's look at the other labels I've used frequently:

• "weather" (18): how Canadian ;)
• "sick" (17): remember the coughing, pneumonia? I think I didn't use that label for the seizure, as it doesn't feel like a sickness to me...
• "work" and "running" (16): I did run on a regular basis... last year. I won't even comment on the other label.
• "MBA" (15): that's pretty high, considering that I've been in school only five months out of the past year.

I'm sad to see the following labels getting really low scores:

• "pampering" (1): one facial. Period.
• "personal finances" (1): I did my income taxes. Period.
• "single life" (3): my last date was a long time ago. It wasn't that great.

You ask: why am I going through this exercise right now? Blame Lara. She came out for a walk with me yesterday (so beautiful outside) and we talked about work-life balance, relationships (she did all the talking there) and my failing miserably on a promise I made to myself a few years ago. My professional life is going really well, as I invest a significant amount of my time on my career and education. Which leaves no time for my personal life. And Lara said that I was purposefully keeping myself busy to avoid dealing with my personal life. OK, harsh, but not untrue. I told her I didn't know how to work on my personal life. I told her that working on my professional development was so easy, so straightforward, I naturally gravitated towards rational, structured, impersonal investments in myself.

A few years ago, she told me I had to make time to work on my personal life, stop cramming every day from morning 'till evening.

So yesterday, we talked about this again. Right now, I asked her? How am I going to make time right now? I'm too busy.

That's my point, she replied.

I understand. Except that I have no idea what to do about it, where to stop, where to cut. And honestly, I'm not really excited about the idea of dating. Call me jaded, but I haven't met anyone that really impressed me of lately. I feel that I've been mostly disappointed. But then again, I can't say that my sample can be statistically representative.

This is hard. Wanna talk about the weather?

On balance and support

Wow, it's really sunny outside! After lunch, I'm going out for a stroll along the seawall. I might even stop by Granville Island for a little food and window shopping.

Thank goodness it's the weekend, I had a busy week. But an interesting one as well. On Thursday morning, I was volunteering for the annual Women's Executive Network's Canada's Most Powerful Women: Top 100 event at the Terminal City Club. A few students (all women) from the MBA program were asked to help out. After helping with the setup (starting at 6:30 a.m.) and manning (or womaning?) the registration table, I had an opportunity to attend one of the sessions. It was titled Risk to Win: Take Uncharted Paths to Achieve Career Success. Each session was held as an open discussion with three or four panelists who were all winners in this year's Top 100. The discussions were loosely moderated, which made it a bit difficult to latch on to the points being presented (too many anecdotes). However, I did come out of this session with some questions of my own on balance.

One of the panelists was referring back to a discussion she had with her women (mostly executive) friends. She had asked them if they were to redo their lives all over again, what would they do differently. The unanimous response was "spend more time with their kids." Not that this was a surprise, but it made me realize how difficult it is to make the decision about how to balance your professional and personal (family) life. It also made me think how the path to try and "have it all" is unrealistic and somewhat selfish. Something's gotta give.

Fortunately, at this point in my life, I can allow myself to be selfish. Being single and having no kids means I can focus all my energy on my education and career. I've spoken to a few other students who are not in this situation, and have heard of how some of them are running into problems at home. I'm sure the fact that the MBA seriously cuts into any free time we might have does not help maintain healthy relationships.

Speaking of career, I must say that what I really appreciate about my current job are my coworkers. I've been fortunate enough to deal with people who are professional, respectful, and kind enough to give me advice (when I ask for it). Many of my coworkers are experienced managers and being able to discuss challenges openly makes me feel supported in my new position. I know I'm not "getting" everything or doing everything I should be doing, but if I feel I'm struggling with something, I have people to turn to. They also will kindly hint at my mistakes, without being judgmental. Well, at least not in my face ;)

OK, time for lunch, then a nice walk before hitting the books again.

Laughing so hard it hurts the belly

That's when you know dinner was a success!

I had seven people over for dinner last night and we had a blast. I invited Lara and Charles, Libby and Dan, their friends Laura and Greg, and Rafael. I followed a great suggestion from my dad for the meal: I made two large pots of stew, with lots of winter veggies, one vegetarian with chickpeas, and one with lamb. When everything was slowly cooking on the stove, I saw myself eating this for the next week, I thought I'd have lots of leftovers. No such thing, people went for second servings, even after I ran out of pasta.

I had promised Rafael that we would not spend the evening speaking in French. And we didn't. But we spoke Montreal English, which is another language all together. Montreal English is sprinkled with unique expressions and lots of French words. And English Montrealers also understand Quebec French, which sometimes made its way into the conversation. What do ex-Montrealers talk about when they get together? Winter, driving, winter driving, bagels, movies, politics, and eventually, les Têtes à claques (this is also my test to see what Blogger will do with French accents). The site was brought up by Laura and Greg, who are English Montrealers but have a really good grasp of Quebec French. I had heard about it through Annie and Marc-Antoine during my last visit back East. This has been such an Internet phenomenon, an unexpected success story that took the province by storm in 2006 (and continues to do so). Some of the clips on the site have been viewed over 5 million times! I remember a Radio Canada news broadcast about some politician in parliament making a reference to one of their most popular clips, Le Willi Waller, while in session. Now that's integration into popular culture! Some schools and government offices have also included the site in banned list.

I discovered something last night: Charles is a storyteller. I always saw Charles as a great speaker and someone who would instantly start chatting up people, wherever we are. Last night, throughout our conversations, I could see him telling stories. And when he told stories, people would listen, laugh, chime in. Maybe that's what also makes him a good teacher. It's all about delivery, pace, and intonation.

Why do you blog?

Someone preparing a talk in Vancouver about why people blog wants to know what keeps you writing every week. It's pretty short...

Blogger finally got tired of my ignoring their pleas to upgrade and they have now forced me to move to the new version. What was wrong with the old version? I have had a series of annoying experiences recently with some of my automatic software upgrades and I'm tired of dealing with new versions that are worse than the previous. I updated my version of antivirus, it gave me an incomprehensible error message and then it took me several hours, including one with support, to find out that I had to remove the new version and re-install it. Somehow, the automatic installation didn't work.

Then, after being annoyed by iTunes to upgrade to their latest version (7.0), I finally did it and you know what? It SKIPS! Yes, like old records or a scratched CDs, my electronic music files (i.e. no moving parts) skip of I try to do anything else on the computer while they are playing. No browsing, no scrolling up and down the library... Give me a break! I found some information about the issue on the support site, apparently, I have to uninstall 7.0 and return to the previous version to fix the problem.

Blogger, don't let me down. My fuse is about to blow. Windows Vista? Yah, right.

EEG stands for excellent excuse for an afternoon snooze

OK, I couldn't find anything clever for the "G".

If you've never had an EEG before, it's an interesting experience. First, the technician measures your head front-to-back, side-to-side, front-to-side, and marks spots with a special crayon. Then, you get to lie down and each spot is smudged with a compound that helps the sensors read the brain waves (and also keeps the sensors in place). I'd say I had about twelve of them stuck to my head, two to my ears (points of references for the computer, i.e. this is NOT part of the brain), and a few others to my upper chest and my face.

Then, you go through a few tests: opening and closing your eyes with regular light, with a strobe light that's blinking faster and faster, breathing quicker and deeper than your normal breathing, counting both forwards and backwards... Finally, you get to lie down and relax. I was so relaxed (or tired) that I fell asleep, even with the technician typing on the computer a few feet away. She seemed surprised by how quickly I fell asleep! I, on the other had, was not ;)

I asked to see some of the readings afterwards, and for her to show me where she could tell that I was sleeping. It's pretty cool stuff. When you're awake, the waves have short ups and downs while billion of brain cells work away. When you're sleeping, it's the opposite, waves are spread apart and ups and downs are far apart.

Some recent news that made me feel sad... My closest colleague has decided to leave work and spend a few months taking care of his kids. I think this is a very noble decision. Work was really impacting his family life. It's too bad that some positions in the company don't really allow for a good balance between work and personal life. I think one of the big challenges is that we've had a high rate of attrition in the past year and people who leave are not always replaced. This means that people left behind absorb the additional work. Another challenge is working with teams divided across continents, more than twelve hours away. We often need to coordinate efforts and share information effectively, for which e-mail is not always an appropriate medium. This means either early morning or late night calls.

I'll really miss this colleague, we worked well together, and he always had lots of respect for my ideas and sometimes crazy projects. Having someone around who is always supportive makes such a difference. We also shared common values and expectations. I could tell this person about good and bad things happening in my life. It felt like having an older (and wiser) brother at work ;)

:-(