Bruge, Belgium Pics

Hey everyone!

I have finally added some new pics. Follow the link below for pictures from Bruge:

http://sarahkeepingitmoving.shutterfly.com/

BGC

So today the people are BGC (at least the back office people) were told that there will not be any bonuses being paid in December, but rather they will receive their bonuses some time during the 1st Qtr of 2009. Needless to say, Brokerage Receivables, where I work, is not a happy place. There is also a rumor going around that there will be no pay raises for this year. The employees are very frustrated. We see the money coming in and wonder where it all goes. It makes you wonder what is really going on in the Front office. Our department Christmas party also got cancelled and I'm guessing that the BGC Christmas party will also be cancelled, but I haven't heard news about that yet. I feel luck that I am not a permanent employee so this doesn't really affect me too much. Only have 4 months left, so that's good. All I have to worry about is trying to find a job when I get home :( Hopefully the economy will turn around by September 2009.

MJ and Anne are gone :(

Well MJ and Anne left me :( I told them that they could stay until I went home for Christmas, but surprisingly they still hopped on their flight on Sunday morning. Boo :( I believe that they had a good time. They spent their days wandering around London (visiting street markets a lot) and then they were always home cooking dinner by the time I got back from work around 6:30pm. It was great!

While they were here we also taught my roommates Jayanth (the pic with me also in it) and Avinash (this pic w/out me) how to play shithead. They were welcomed to the game by having the honor of wearing the shithead hat that MJ and Anne found while out and about.

But now they've left me and I'm all alone :(

I wasn't able to take them to the airport on Sunday because I had class. The final class for Unit 5. Only 1 more unit and 3 more weekends of class to go. Its crazy! We have now started working on our final business plan. Its going all right. My group sucks, but hopefully we can work through it. The presentation is on Jan. 30th, so we just have to make it until then. Hopefully I do!

This Saturday morning I'm heading to Munich for the Christmas markets. Let me tell you . . I am VERY EXCITED! I love Christmas Markets and its going to be a good break from work (I have Monday off), school and London. I will collect some glasses for people to use on Gluhwein night (Dec. 20th) when I'm home! 24 days!

Comics to Brighten the Day

1 Minute for Breast Cancer

A favour to ask, it only takes a minute....

The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on 'donating a mammogram' for free (pink window in the middle). This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know. http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/

Thoughts for the day

Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.

Whine less, Breathe more
Talk less, Say more
Hate less, Love more
And all good things are yours

If you say you can't, you won't
If you say you quit, you lose
If you say you will try, you just might win
But only you have the power to choose.

Weekend in Wales

MJ and Anne arrived safely on Wednesday and on Thursday and Friday while I was at work they did a Hop on Hop off bus tour of London and a Thames River cruise.

During the weekend MJ, Anne and I rented a car and drove out to Wales. The trip was good, minus all the driving/following directions part. That was VERY stressful for all. They don't really do a good job with labelling the streets and stuff. After picking up the car we headed out of London and then stopped at Windsor Castle. We toured there and then hopped back on the M4 for Cardiff. We got to Cardiff around 3:30pm and since the Castle closed at 4pm we decided to stop somewhere for a beer to de-stress! 4 rounds later we were looking for something to eat. We found Wagamama's (yummy Japanese noodle place) and it was wonderful! I'm craving it right now actually!! We got to bed pretty early on Saturday night and slept in until 10am! Crazy. We then headed to Cardiff Castle and took a really nice tour. Then we headed to Bath. MJ and Anne went through the Roman Baths and I went to the Disney Store (I had been to Bath a couple of weeks ago). At the Disney store I found some Donald Duck mugs for MJ and then headed to Starbucks to wait for their tour of the Roman Baths to end. We left Bath around 5:30pm and should have been back to the apartment around 7:30pm; however, there was an accident and it took us about 1 - 1 1/2 hours to drive about 10 miles. It was not fun. But all in all it was still a good weekend.

MJ and Anne brought the car back on Monday. They originally were going to take a day trip to Stonehenge, but after all the stress of driving through London this weekend, they decided that Stonehenge really isn't that cool!

Yesterday was back to work for me :( MJ and Anne spent the day walking around MJ's old haunts. Not sure what they're doing today. I just know that it was MJ's day to plan. She lost at Rock, Paper, Scissors!!

MJ's Coming!!

This weekend was pretty boring. I had class the whole weekend and class on Saturday was long and boring! At least Sunday we got out early! Only were in class 10am-12pm! After class on Sunday Tanya and I and some others went to watch a rugby game and then headed to the gym (Tone Zone Women's Health Magazine, very exciting!). If you do want to do some really good and challenging workouts I would suggest going to the Women's Health Magazine website and downloading them to your Ipod or printing them out. They're great! Tanya and I try to do 2 workouts a week.

Probably won't be able to workout much in the next two weeks because MJ and Anne are coming! Can't wait. They'll be here on Wednesday and are here until November 23rd. I believe our plans for the weekend are to drive to Cardiff, Wales. We'll see. I'm sure MJ will be willing to do a blog entry! Change it up a bit. Sure you're getting sick of hearing from me!

Before MJ comes 6 of us are going to the show Fat Pig. Its a comedy show and it looks pretty good. I'll let ya know.

Messy Words

This is weird, but interesting! Let everyone know whether or not you can read it by clicking on the poll to the left.

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Azanmig huh? yaeh andI awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Pumpkins

Happy Halloween! This last week I had the joy of introducing pumpkin carving to my roommates. Jayanth, Avinash and Manjeri had never carved a pumpkin before. Avinash didn't seem to find it that interesting; however, Manjeri decided that she had so much fun doing it that she was going to do it next year when she's back in India!

Lets see, other than carving pumpkins I also got a free steak dinner on Wednesday night. Deutsche Bank (where Tanya works) had a free steak dinner at a local restaurant. I was able to go and pretend that I worked for DB. It was great! There were so many other Mountbattens there. We interns really know how to take advantage of free food!

This week I have an election party to go to on Tuesday and a group meeting on Wednesday (we have a presentation on our market research for our business plan). Nothing too special!

On a more serious note . . Please pray for my friend Kelly's boyfriend Dustin who fell off a roof recently and is in critical condition.

Have a good week!