Monday, October 22, 2007

Take me where I want to go

I'm sorry for not writing for such a long time. I was sick a bit last week and stayed at home and when I came back to work, I was quite busy. So here you go, update for the last two weeks.
1. Poker night last Friday: we had a lot of fun, Prince won a lot (well, compared to what we played for - 100kc each, about 5$, so he won 20$). I end us even, which is good considering the state of my mind at the end of a game, around 2 am :) I tent to bet higher later in the night... and loose more. I guess I should not drink if I want to win, but then it wouldn't be such fun. At least this time I saw my card till the end :)))
2. Meeting with Jan and Vladka: a week ago Jan (known from posting comments as Bolek) visited Prague so we met for some beers. It was great seeing him! He did not change too much, with his bitter but funny comments :)
3. Rugby Saturday evening both weekend: it was a lot of fun. The first game England won with France which made me very happy. Unfortunately, they lost the final against South Africa, but I do not mind South Africa winning (and I mind France - I became very anti French because of people at work).
4. Elections in Poland on Sunday: I voted in the embassy. Platforma Obywatelska (Civil Platform) won! I am extremely happy. Finally, the end of right wing conservative rule! It was too much for me. Surprisingly, the turnout was very high: almost 55%, the highest since the end of communism. Hopefully, people realized that their vote is important and that if you don't vote, you may end up with two twin ducks ruling the country :) (For those not in the loop of Polish politics: the president and the ex-prime minister are twins and their surname is "Duck-like"). I hope that the new government will change something, especially economically. They have huge potential in my opinion, we will see how they will use it.
5. Discussion about the future cont.: yesterday we spend some time talking about the future, moving to Scotland, the wedding and so on. We decided what we want to do, but then Prince was looking into visas and work permit for Scotland and it did not sound optimistic. Now, we are thinking he might have to go back to school (which I think he might like and going into Academia is his best bet, but he does not fully agrees). The problem with that is the tuition fees - extremely high.
If we will not make it to Scotland, I am not sure about anything. Prince does not want to stay here for too much longer (I think a year is maximum), there is no more English speaking countries in Europe except for UK and Ireland. Maybe we should reconsider moving to the US, but none of us particularly wants that for certain reasons (two most important for me: not being able to see my family as often as I would like; the benefits I am used to does not exist there, for example free health care or maternity leave or 25 vacation days ... a lot of things like this that we, Europeans are used to).
6. Work: it's getting worse. We are currently doing performance reviews and I got frustrated because they didn't let me promote a person who is doing a great job. Also, I am going to look for another position within the company and my manager is going to support it. Which on the one hand is very good, because I am tired of what I'm doing now and I don't really want to manage people; on the other hand I am disappointed that I didn't manage to do very well. It's not only my fault, but still, I could have been better. Oh, well. Now, I'm concentrating on moving somewhere, learn something new, work with different people and more with clients.

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