dear internet,

i am sitting in my new office that has much better light than my old office (and i therefore will not be affectionately calling it The Cave as i did my old one) but i am crawling over furniture to get to my desk and my phone and internet function only when they damn well feel like it, which can be a bit trying. but i am feeling much better after a near-spirit-death experience this past week.

perhaps my change in mood and disposition is because i am currently drafting interview questions so that i can hire an intern. i guess you can feel like you are making progress when a year after you were the intern you are responsible for picking a new intern. it should be good and i will not be too cruel in asking them how they feel about doing my photocopying and envelop licking. because i am no diva and am more than happy to do envelop licking but it will be nice to have someone track people down on the phone. how does a country exist without voicemail?!

in entertainment news, i saw Super Bad last night and although it was not super bad, it really wasn't that great and the best part of the movie was the popcorn. or when i asked the guy if they had some butter to put on top and he explained to me that they were 'a little behind' and did not yet have buttered popcorn. who knew buttered popcorn was a sign of the times?

i made a dish with shrimp last night and this is perhaps the second or third time i have ever cooked them and i am not sure i really enjoy the shrimp when i have cooked the shrimp myself. i am going back to my no-meat, no-fish, no-shrimp cooking regime.

i have also sourced myself a new kitchen table and chairs. thank god, because making a delicious meal and then sitting down to eat it on your couch like an impoverished student got old long before i finished my years of post-secondary education. i am also rather looking forward to 2 long weekends in a row, both of which will be spent camping. the first weekend will be the dress rehersal for the real deal the following weekend where, if all goes well (and it often doesn't in the east africa planning department), i should be popping down to tanzania to check out the ngorongoro crater and olduvai gorge. i love the birthplace of humanity.

uh oh, problem with the new office space. now that the bathroom is across the hall from my office, i can hear when people decide to snarfle into the sink. what else do you call that noise where people suck out all the mucus from their sinuses and spit it out? well, someone just did that. and when they interviewed me and i said i was comfortable working in an international and multicultural environment, i don't think i was thinking of that! kenyans, somalis, canadians, pakistanis, brits, italian, filipinos, eritreans, americans, sudanese... never a dull moment around here.