Lilac lovely

I know I am going on and on about the beauty of spring, but I promise this will be the last entry. It is just very hard to not talk about spring when the lilac bushes have blossomed. Their fragrance accompanies me on my bicycle trip to and from work these days.
My colleagues and I are preparing for an event at the beginning of July where we will present all of our school projects for the last two years. In some ways, July seems very far away, but we just figured out that we have done over 40 projects, so we are inundated with work. For each of the projects, we must write descriptions for our website, translate them into English (big delay here), a brochure, posters, and handouts. We are also a bit behind on the technical specification schematic, including the mixed-reality installations, projectors, laptops, and pinboards.

Marie and I were tearing our hair out today with lists and files and different text versions…

Last year, two colleagues and I almost had nervous breakdowns by the time the event was over. It is difficult when the distribution of power and tasks are unevenly balanced or divided. There was also a lot of built-up resentment in our hearts. Some of the guys just didn’t pull their share of the work.

My father used to judge a person’s worth on how far he would be willing to sail with that person. There were the rum-and-coke-at-sunset sailors: one hour, two tops. There was also those few elite, where he would be willing to go for long distance sails (i.e., as in ocean crossing): say over the Atlantic (from Europe to Grenada, to mean a long but relatively easy sail), or even all-the-way-to-Australia-and-back (difficult sail) type of person. The latter was the best type of person in his estimate: sturdy, honest, reliable, talented, generous, man-of-small-ego, golden-heart type of a person.

There are a few fellows I work with that I wouldn’t jump over a puddle with. That’s the bald truth. I sure wish it was otherwise, but it just ain’t going to happen.