The Weekend Review - Slow Monday

I walked into work this morning, having been gone at a conference on Thursday and Friday, and sat down in front of my large, metal desk. It was a pretty normal Monday morning: looked around and greeted my coworkers, looked hrough my schedule for the day, leafed through some paperwork that I need to deal with this week and listened to the daily staff meeting, now understanding at least the gist of everything they talk about. I swivel around in my chair, getting settled, and then I look down and notice a lime green envelope with my name on, it sitting under the plastic sheath that covers my desktop. I pulled it out and carefully opened it.

Inside the envelope was a birthday card with a large picture of Mickey Mouse in 80s-style shades on the cover. It read "SMILE". I opened it. "...IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!!" is written in large letters across the top.

It was a birthday card from my colleague! They remembered:-) The message was simple and cute and a very genuine attempt at rhyming. I was impressed.:

Happy Birthday. I like your smile! You're always cheerful. And you cheer me up (because you were a cheerleader). I'm grateful for your help. Let's enjoy teaching.

(Yes, I was once, long ago, a cheerleader... don't hold it against me;-) )

Anyways, I thought the card was sweet and wanted to share... Monday morning can be slow, but it made my day. The weekend, on the other hand, was a little crazy. Between the birthday party, the conference, the charity event and everything else that happened over this long, long weekend, I am just grateful that we somehow survived. We didn't get the numbers at Friday night's event that we expected (especially for the volume) and there was a bit of drama, but I do think we made a bit of money for the chidren in Cambodia and it was nice to see a lot of people out. I didn't make it to the New Years party on Saturday and the rain (and snow fall!!) prevented me from doing real training for the marathon, but I also squeezed in a long-overdue visit to a friend working in Osaka.

Not too much else is new. The American travel buddies that we met at the hostel in Taipei are also coming to visit next weekend and all my second year students are in Singapore. Oh, and I've gotten some questions about all the India posts and pictures that I promised, but have yet to produce... they're still coming. To be honest, my computer's start up disc is full and I have been relectant to move files to my external harddrive, especially pictures, but just need to do it so I have the space. I just don't have enough room to upload everything! Thanks for the patience and hope you all had a lovely weekend. Cheers!