Toughest week for a while..

This week that just passed has been one of the tougher weeks I've faced. The death of Alejandro was a shock and a tragedy. You have to dig quite deep to summon the energy, the determination, the positive thinking to continue a job hunt. Those who are working and are busy at work can submerge themselves in work which can lighten the heavy weight of this kind of news. Obviously it is important to have the chance to mourn as well but life gets back to normal. I have been and am still optimistic about this entire job hunting ordeal in London despite the incredible stresses I'm under but even the most optimistic of people are affected with news that lowers ones spirit so.

I'm more convinced than ever that moving to London is the right thing for me and now was the right time to do it. I know that it is very difficult to understand the situation I find myself in if one hasn't been in my shoes but it's a real battle out there to get even the most junior of jobs. In the middle of this tough week I had an interview at a small online sales house. An interesting company which I think has great potential but as with most interviews, its sometimes difficult to get a good feel for how you did. As I was myself, there's nothing else I can do. Still these jobs I'm getting are entry level. Starting from the bottom and working my way up.

Have yet to hear their decision but fingers crossed. Would entail another interview with the managing director.

I've also managed to organise some "temp" work for a maximum of 20 hours per week. We shall see where that leads...

On Saturday I spent the day at Twickenham watching the Guinness Premiership Rugby Union Final... between Leicester Tigers and the London Irish... an interesting experience. 82,000 people. Rugby is a fantastic sport and real hard mans sport. Also managed to drink 9 beers in the space of around 6 hours. Good day out and nice way to get my mind off the tough week that I'd just had.

Anne's just come back from Sweden where she spent the weekend so I'm off but wish me luck for another interesting week in London hunting jobs.

Alejandro...

Alejandro, my brother...



Yesterday I was told the terrible news that one of my closest friends from high school in Belgium, Alejandro, had sadly passed away suddenly in Chicago. At the young age of 27 he unexpectedly got a Brain Aneurysm and apparantly the doctors could not do anything to save his life. Needless to say I'm hurting. A friend with passion, with spirit, with a smile which could get kids giggling, so full of optimism will be so sorely missed. Having received a mail from him one week before he passed, his tone was one of optimism at the future and of enjoying life. He was desperately looking for a break in the world of acting and had sacrificed a lot to follow his passion. His life is an inspiration to me and having already embarked on my journey to follow my passion, it is a further reminder that should I die tomorrow, I will die a happy man who followed his heart.

That he is now gone in all but spirit is the harshest form of realisation that physical distance between friends means nothing. It is 6000 km between London and Chicago. But there is absolutely no distance between the hearts of our friends, between ourselves, our friendships. That's the reality we live in today with geographical distance no match for the strength of friendships. The strong bonds you create with certain people on this world are magical and Alejandro is and will always be a part of me.

It is especially difficult to explain the emptiness I feel today as I have not seen Alejandro since Thanksgiving 2002. My emptiness is not one of realising that we will not seeing eachother on a daily basis. That break occured many many years ago. Friendships are however forever and not bounded by distance. My friendships build on the hope, the excitement, the strength and energy caused by once again meeting and sharing the memories of the past. On the knowledge that when we reconnect we refuel our friendship, we refuel our spirits, the realisation that "Dro, you haven't changed a bit..." . The mails on a Sunday after 6 months which say "Hey, I know I've been bad at keeping in touch" that totally make your day... I gain my strength from these moments to refuel and this is the first time I have encountered the realisation that my sources of inspiration and energy, of strength and power can be taken whenever. A realisation that the memories continue and the marks from where he touched me will live on forever. It hurts that to gather strength from him now will sadly come from the past and from my memory. Ultimately Alejandro's passing has changed little in my everyday but has caused the first deep tear in my soul. I'm happy to say though that he lives on through me and all the rest of the people he touched.


"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." Thomas Campbell, Hallowed Ground


Alejandro was the person at St. Johns who lived closest to me. It took me probably 15 minutes to walk or 2 minutes to drive. Our families car-pooled together. We'd always go out to Brussels and Waterloo together and get lifts back together. Coming back to visit while at University we came home after a late night out and sat in the quadrangle of a school near him and drank a few beers and got chased away by the superintendents screaming strange things in flemish. The first day of school 1998 when we were both new I asked Do you play sports. He said "no, well a little Lacrosse". What you like to do? "Man i love music", Do you play an instrument "yea, guitar" and I was like "Thats really kool". We went to Bordeaux together where we both hated Toni Braxton together. We played a strange form of KOOSH ball together in the water. We sang on the roof together. We played chess at sunrise together. We spent thanksgiving together in 2002. We laughed together. We sang together. You introduced me to Mappa mundo's, my favorite bar in Brussels. You introduced me to The Cure - "Friday I'm in Love" which is our themetune. You said Rock Steady. I said PRUUUUUUUUUNE JUICE!!!!!

To Alejandro's family, there are no words that I can say but know that my positive thoughts and energy are with you through these troubled times.

To my friends, we have a bond that gives me strength and I am grateful for it and the way it fuels my life. Be careful but enjoy life.



This energy, this thought, this moment, this reflection, this clump in my throat, this sweat, these giggles, these memories, these tears and these smiles are for you Alejandro! Hope you've got the internet up there so you know that you touched my life and inspired me to live life the way it should be lived. I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. Thanks my friend...

I'll leave you with the last words he wrote to me last sunday...

"Well guys I'm off to get stuff done. I hope to run into you on-line or on the street. Talk to you soon."

The Surprise, the week, the assessment center

I realise I haven't had the chance to write for over a week and some of you haven't found out what the surprise Anne was giving me was, how the interview went and lots of other fun stuff so I think in all fairness I'll have to start at the beginning...

As it will be long I'll put some headings for those interested in just one component...


Friday 1st May

The Interview

I had an interview at Huddle.net on Friday at 12.30... it was for a marketing and sales executive and was a very interesting role... albeit it a quite junior role, but great potential to grow and develop the role.. if you haven't used Huddle.net go onto their website here. It's a fantastic product which allows online collaboration, document sharing and project management online... It's a type of extranet/intranet hosted on the internet... great for companies and students trying to work on projects ... anyway...

So the interview consisted of me having 15 minutes to prepare a presentation on how to use Facebook and what's good about it... and then delivering it... after that we had a little chat and came to the conclusion that I was over-qualified for the role and that it wasn't quite the right role for me... gratefully though they recommended me to a recruiter called Pareto which finds sales graduate jobs... and an hour after the interview they called me up and invited me to an Assessment centre that took place yesterday...

After the interview I met up with John B and Carolina who were in town... it was fantastic to see them albeit for a short hour or two... but at 15.00 Anne told us we had to go someplace... and so we did...

The Surprise

Anne told us we were going to take the tube at Liverpool street but in fact we jumped on the Stansted Express and upon arriving there we headed right through the Security check without checking in as she'd already checked in before we got there and printed the boarding pass... I still didn't know where we were heading but I knew that we were going on a jet plane... :-)

We get to the gate as its boarding... and for the first time I realise where we are heading... the next picture MIGHT give it away...


That's right DUBLIN.... hence the Guiness (which I must say was absolutely fantastic... much better there...) YIPEEEE ... I've always wanted to go to Dublin... to Ireland... what a fantastic surprise...

Once we arrived in Dublin we were going to get a bus into the city where Anne had fixed accomodation... and as we left the Arrivals area and started looking for where to get the bus... there was KIERAN... my friend from Ireland who I met in Bratislava... Anne had sorted out for him to be in Dublin that weekend as well.. FANTASTIC!!! :-D Just gets better and better...

Here's a pic of Kieran and I at Bray Head... a beach just south of Dublin... :-)

Anne had fixed a nice apartment hotel... not far from the center of dublin... and when we got there we were told there was a leak in the room we were supposed to get so they upgraded us to their nicest "Apartment"... but it wasn't so much an apartment as a HOUSE... three floors, the largest living room I've seen for a long long time.. enough space for 8 couches... and much much more... three fantastic balcony's and 3 bathrooms... very impressive... It was right next to Shelbourne Park (The grayhound racing track in Dublin) and within eyesight from Landsdowne road (rugby and football stadium)... which is being rebuilt... for some reason I had a sneezing fit in many pictures while in Dublin but in the following pic its Shelbourne Park in the background...

There was one more surprise and that was waiting at Messrs Macguire ( a famous pub in dublin)...by O'connell bridge... And that was that Edwina, another friend of mine from Ireland who I had met in Bratislava as well, was there too... Sooo many surprises :-)


So it was an absolutely fantastic weekend away... in which we got to chill with Kieran and Edwina, see some fantastic nature outside Dublin including in Bray and and surrounding areas... !!! We also saw this old monastary which had this tower built to protect them from the Vikings, if they heard they were coming they'd just climb up using ladders and then draw the ladders up so that nobody could get in.. clever... :-)



I can't thank Anne enough for a fantastic get-away, I really needed to get away... and what better place than Dublin and to see some friends too... I'm a LUCKY guy...!!! As you can see from below...


Sadly the surprise trip was over far too fast as always but fantastic memories and nice to get out of London a bit... THANKS ANNE... I was super HAPPY as you can see



This Week

The assessment centre

So yesterday I went to an assessment center with 48 other highly talented young people... an interesting day for sure made up of group assignments, presentations and one-on-one's... at the end of the day I was asked to join a group of 11 others into a seperate room where they told us that we had "unfortunately" gone through... the old trying to trick us... but the quality of the other 11 meant that it wasn't too hard to tell that this was the group that went through... it was quite strange though because I didn't think I did a great job... anywhoo... I was one of the 12 that went through out of a group of 48 and now they're going to look for jobs for me and put me forth to final interviews with some of their clients... so hopefully something will come of it...


Temp work

I also have an opportunity to do some temp (temporary) work for an ex-colleague of mine... who needs some help structuring some statistics among other things... So if nothing else it's been a good week... albeit for one thing...


Chelsea

Chelsea (my fav. football team) played against Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final and played really well but didn't finish off their opportunities when they had them and they were "kicked in the teeth" as you say when Iniesta (a Barcelona player) scored in the last minute of the game... whats worse is the referee ( a norwegian) had arguably the worst game of his life... he missed at least 2 clear penalties and some might argue a few more than that... Luckily football is just a game... although there is soo much money and politics that its often more than that... at first I was furious but when you really think about it... the referee is only human... there are psychological factors that come into account when you have to make decisions based on what you see in high speeds... imagine you had to choose who to employ by a 3 second clip of them walking... or decide what to buy for lunch by a 1 second taste while blind-folded... yes referees are trained to see certain things... and they are in many cases professional now meaning they get paid only to to this but when the pressure is sooo immense and perhaps you are having an off day, the repurcussions are huge... I think it is understandable that the Chelsea players were absolutely furious and enraged but what can do you... sport is sport, and although I often think that Chelsea are harshly done by a lot of decisions and fate has dealt them a lot of cruel blows... I am sure it is the same for most teams.. no matter what team you support you will think that you are hard-done by because that is what you remember most...

nevertheless, the lose was a low point of the week as it was sooo close and I think Chelsea fully deserve the Champions League despite what many people argue is a bought team... my worry is that this was our last chance to win it... there is a possibility that we'll be back next year but I think we had a real chance this year particularly with the boss we have.. Guus...


So that was a little update of whats been going on with me this past week... I think it is quite outrageous that there are sooo many terrific and intelligent people out there without work at the moment which is very clear having been at the assessment center yesterday... a real pity that young people and old people alike are struggling to get work... there's a lot of us out there... and I don't think the general public really understands that...