2011: Picking up pace

It seems as though everyone is back in Joburg now. The schools are back, all the new little grade 1's have been introduced to their teachers and are probably trying to find their way around what must feel like a massive school with impossibly large numbers of pupils.

I went for a run yesterday morning past our local primary school, Bryneven, and without fail, every parent climbed out of the car with sunglasses on (this was early morning) and a camera in hand. There is absolutely no doubt it is much harder for parents to drop their kids off at school, than it is for the kids themselves!

The indication that cemented this was when I returned from my run and not a single car had moved. This means that all the parents were still inside the school, no doubt battling to separate themselves from their offspring.

While I thought this was quite emotional and funny at the same time, I then realised that I also go back to school this coming Monday and there will be no-one to drop me off. This is even sadder!

In any event, we had registration for the MBA at GIBS yesterday and instead of being introduced to our teachers who would be the guiding force in us learning how to read and write, we were taken through the business school rules and regulations, copyright and harvard business review formats and why overseas travel for anything but work purposes would be considered grounds for failure.

A sobering wake up to the "back to school" theme while all the grade 1's were meeting new friends on the playground with their plastic lunchboxes in tow...

We have already had to read copious amounts of work for next week and while this does take time, the silver lining is that it is (so far) all quite interesting. Long may this continue.

The office is also filling up fast and the indication of this is when all of a sudden my diary is no longer blank and vacant, but meetings and strategy reviews start to populate the Monday to Friday view I had spent so much time enjoying in December because of its blankness.

The challenge now is how to balance this with all my time at GIBS, which should be fun. But that's okay, I wouldnt have it any other way :)

So, onto other things...

1). Tomorrow we should have some resolution on the property buying process we have engaged in...fun fun
2). Liverpool can't seem to win a game anymore and I sat up until midnight last night watching them lose to Blackpool (this is more stressful to me than most things)
3). The Proteas smashed India in mini-India (Durban) and all the Indian flags that were waving round the stadium suddenly became South African flags when India were 44/4.
4). Helen has developed a new mechanism for cutting onions, wearing sunglasses regardless of the time of day seems to do the trick.
5). I have now run 64.16km this year on resolution 1. Styling.

and on that note:

Totals: 2011, January 13th, 64.16km to date over 12 separate runs in 5hours and 45 minutes, burning 6929kcal

Tuesday Run: 5.08km in 26min07 secs, average pace: 5min09/km (old Parks time trial)

Wednesday Run: 5.48km in 30min16 secs, average pace 5min32/km