Aaaah well...

Hot on the heels of my last post, I am now sitting in a different boardroom. The same boardroom that was booked for my 8am meeting, but considering that the 8am meeting has just been moved to 4pm, this explains why I am spending more time on this blog!

Unfortunately, as these things happen, one of the key executives required for the session is finalising bonus and increase numbers for the year-end financial run and requested the meeting be moved. Alas, this means that getting here early this morning was a bit of a waste, but if nothing else, my blog is benefitting...

What this does mean is that I now have an even longer day, with my last meeting ending after 5 and my afternoon run seemingly in jeopardy. I shall make a plan!

Okay, so now that I have extra time, I'll get into some of the specifics from the last few weeks that I have not captured here...There is always a lot to update!

I've mentioned New Year's resolution number 1 and the fact that I have now run 279 kilometres (174 miles for Joe and Melissa!) this year in total. This has been an ongoing focus and even though there have been some weeks where I have let it slip (mostly due to lectures or long hours at work), I have been able to maintain some form of consistency and am well on track overall.

Yesterday Helen and I entered the Knysna Forest Half Marathon for July and (like last year's Otter Trail) this is something I have intended on doing for many years and have always had such a busy mid-year period that it has not been achievable. This time around though, we have planned for it, entered it and will be doing it!

This also has a bit of a story to it. Considering that my MBA is all consuming from a time perspective, I was of the opinion that I would need to drive down with Helen to Knysna in July, then catch a flight back to write an exam the morning after the run. This would have been fine, but I was not sure which morning the exam I needed to write would be on. So I contacted Gibs. With this in mind, I mentioned that I only needed to know when the subject "Management Accounting" would be written, as I didnt need to write "Information and Knowledge Management" because I already have the credit from my previous business degree.

It was at this point that the programme administrator surprised me by saying "I have a list of all the students with credits and you aren't on it" Needless to say, mild heart attack ensued. This was made worse by the fact that the rest of the class had just finished lectures, assignments and the exam for Economics this past Saturday! So there I was, sitting at my desk, starting to think that I had not only not attended the classes for economics based on the information that had previously been given to me regarding the credits (from another one of the admin ladies), but the exam had also gone by!

With this in mind, she said she would dig a little deeper and get back to me. A great way to start your week.

Fortunately (big sigh of relief), she got back to me later in the day, only to confirm that they had my year of graduation for my post graduate degree as 2005 and not 2006 which was when I had previously studied at the business school. This meant that on their records, the qualification had been achieved over 5 years prior to my starting my MBA, which is the gap required by the school to retain the credits and therefore no longer had them...cough cough

In the end though, this minor heart attack became a little hidden gift, as Sazi (the programme admin) told me not only did I have the four credits I originally thought I had, but I also had management accounting! What a bonus (this is huge in the context of the MBA as it means I no longer have to attend lectures for this subject, submit an individual or group assignment or write the exam)

Also, in the context of my earlier paragraph, this subject co-incides with the "Information and Knowledge Management" module, which means I now do not have to attend this "block" of subjects at all. This gives me a complete break from the mid-year schedule and I will only be required back in lectures in August again.

So from having a very bad start to the day, I ended up with a very good conclusion!

In effect, I have covered my MBA resolution as well in this update. All's well so far...

The next one is the "Celebrate our One Year Anniversary in Style"

I can write about this now as the "cat is out of the bag" so to speak (and this could refer to Jelly, as he got himself caught in a plastic bag just yesterday...naughty kitten!)

For a while I had been planning on doing something awesome and legen...dary for our one year. I looked at all the options, took my limited time into account and created a short list. At the end of the day, the requirement was to do something out of the ordinary, but that would be forever memorable.

The result: We are going to Zanzibar for 10 days :)

The Frangipani Spa at The Breezes Resort and Spa, Bweju Beach, Zanzibar

I managed to book us into a 5 star resort on Zanzibar for 7 nights, dinner, bed and breakfast and we will be spending some time with Helen's cousin, Rachel, in Dar Es Salaam before and after we visit the island. So it is something more than just an island trip.

So yay :)

I had to work around the fact that Helen was not allowed to be in the loop and I had to organise that she would have the leave for the trip (considering she didnt know about it, so could not book it!) As a result, I contacted her boss, organised for her to be away for the time and managed the logistics in Tanzania with Rachel.

We then went to one of the most amazing restaurants in Johannesburg (Wombles) for our anniversary dinner (with Helen wondering why we were going two weeks early!). Inbetween starters (amazing Carpaccio and a salad I could eat right now) I brought out a powerpoint presentation I had put together to share the surprise (yes, you can take me out of the office, but you can't take the office out of me :) ). The best part was Helen's confusion when she saw all of this and had no idea what was going on! It basically mentioned the fact that we were going on a trip, to an exotic location and she needed to pack her bags!

Helen said she was even more surprised than when I proposed! (job well done then on hiding it from her!!)

So all in all, we are flying out on the evening of our actual one year anniversary on the 13th March (under two weeks time) to Tanzania for 10 days! A very well timed break inbetween blocks of MBA lectures and loads of work and it is very much being looked forward to!

The land/new house situation has made no progress since I last posted about it, which is a bit of a downer as we had hoped to move on it a long time ago. Alas, this is due to factors outside of our control and we may need to make an alternative plan if it continues. The strategy is still to build something at Pecanwood though and we just need to decide where and what.... (actually the "what" is already designed...)

On that note, I will sign off now and head to the next meeting, which has also been slotted into my diary....busy day this...

Where have you been?

I'm sitting in an empty boardroom this morning waiting for my first meeting. The problem with working just about anywhere in South Africa is that you can't assume you will make it on time for your meetings if you leave home when you think you have enough time. So what you end up doing is leaving much earlier than required and sitting for the better part of an hour for the rest of the crowd to arrive.

It is with this in mind that I thought I had better start to play some catch-up on here, lest I forget everything that has been happening over the last month!

With that in mind, I have a number of posts to catch up on and lots of news to update, so this is just a highlights package of the things that have been occupying my time...

Naturally February is a short month, so there is less time to get things done and it is also the time of the year where the December holidays are a distant memory, financial year end reporting is winding down and things like Valentines Day are the hot topics.

It was also the month of my first MBA exam and continued focus on lectures and assignments. The assignments went swimmingly, the exam, well lets just say I didn't have the time to write all that I needed to...

Helen took a strategy of going away on the weekends that I was in lectures, probably a wise move as I was typically at Gibs from the early morning and working until the evening anyway. So on the first block she went down to Knysna to visit our friend Lara Mare and had a great time in the Cape. The second block was spent with her parents in Mtunzini in northern Natal and some good time on the local golf course taking her dad's money.

All the while, the MBA has progressed well and our syndicate group produced some quality work in the field of Human Behaviour, presenting a well researched case for the challenges in employment equity within Nedbank Retail. It went down incredibly well and was well received by the lecturer and class.

Celebrate the small victories!

On the kitten front, the two little guys are growing fast and eating up a storm. I will need to post some pictures soon, but fear not, they are having just as much fun as ever tearing around the house, clawing the couches and purring and meowing when they think they need MORE food. A decent strategy as their mommy sometimes submits and they get some extra soft food...fat little tummy's!

In my next post I will do a proper new years resolution update, but for now, here is the update on number 1.

February, total distance run 125km. I was 5km short of my target, but this is debateable as my Garmin stopped recording the proper distance middle of last week, which needs to be sorted out!

March started with a 12km run at the Old Parks time trial, a good start to the month and a new monthly target of 150km. This will take some doing considering that I am away for 10 days in March, but only time will tell!

Now...off to my meeting :)