July 2011
6 posts
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economic paradoxes of consulting
your mobile bill is invariably in the triple digits, yet the company frets about RIM/blackberry’s outlook exchange licensing fee (approximately <$100/user/year, and probably <$50/user/year since the company easily has 20K potential users)
your monthly expenditure on hotels exceeds your rent/mortgage
you net more money while on the road than working in your home city, because...
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sometimes things come to a sort of fruition →
January 2011
5 posts
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one of the reasons i'm moving from new york →
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“Happy new year Julia-hope you had a fun festive season! Thank you so much for...”
– M, one of my clients, who was responding to an e-mail about a place at Tiwi Beach where I stayed, and who is absolutely delightful
… So I’m wistful about leaving my Brookadelphian existence, but it’s nice to know I have another base elsewhere and more adventures to come shortly
December 2010
5 posts
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flight facilities (feat. giselle) - crave you
...
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liquid hazards
i have almost exactly $100 for this last week in nairobi
because, you see, a kindly jackass swiped my ATM card number…
and started posting charges in montréal on saturday
(there was an attempt to spend $636 at a jewelry store, presumably in christmas presents… charming!)
but luckily, my bank had smart enough algorithms to catch this and e-mail me this morning
with five charges...
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November 2010
4 posts
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“We’re off to buy a LIVE turkey. P grew up on a farm and knows how to...”
– …the delightful hostess of expat thanksgiving in karen later tonight
i’m cooking up some fierce-ass squash and rice for this today, slides be damned.
there are two other consultants from my start class in ADP now to be in Nbi the 9th.
blankets & wine is tomorrow and it will be off...
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five african writers you must start reading
this is all a bit obvious, but i think it makes a good starting point.
chinua achebe - things fall apart; no longer at ease; a man of the people
buchi emecheta - the joys of motherhood; the new tribe; a kind of marriage
pepetela (in translation unless you’re fluent in português) - the adventures of ngunga; mayombe; the return of the water spirit
wangari maathai - the green belt movement;...
October 2010
8 posts
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now you know why you are here
The first time I meet all of the oncologists in Kenya is when the local office holds a scientific webcast. There are literally four to five medical oncologists, about the same number of radiation oncologists, and perhaps a dozen or so surgical oncologists who more or less handle the entire nation’s treatment of carcinoma (i.e. breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, head & neck, almost...
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the medium is the message
In order to attempt brevity instead of my now-typical ramble-to-shambles (sorry!), I’m going to limit myself to three “media” that I’ve observed here:
exchange
entertainment
engagement
Pretentious disclaimer: I’ve decided these are more conceptual rather than chronological themes I want to tackle with my trips in and out of these places, so one at a time.
First,...
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of vehicles & animals
nairobi >
One of the first things one notices about Nairobi is the prevalence of nice cars. There are definitely a few Tatas and many Daewoos and Skodas on the road, but I don’t think I’ve seen as many new Beemers and Benzes even in Manhattan, and the flash of the cars is even more apparent when considering the almost universally terrible condition of roads and traffic in the...
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Watchmiriam makeba - pata pata
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September 2010
7 posts
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of vehicles & animals
johannesburg >
I land after a seventeen-hour flight from JFK and realize sometime in-flight that I accidentally made my car reservation from O.R. Tambo for 8 p.m. (or 20h as they say) rather than 8 a.m. Avis resolves this issue handily once I rent a phone and grab a cappuccino. I am shown to a gleaming white Mercedes C-200, similar to the starter Benz that Hertz gave me last year. At 10 a.m. we...
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why am i in africa?
Firstly, I have come because like most consultants, I’m a travel whore, and the opportunity to work globally has always been a huge selling point of the job. Africa is a vast region of the world to see - the whole of Europe, China, and the U.S. could fit into its landmass with room to spare, per TED talks referenced below -and I am lucky enough to have a chance to see it now. What...
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blogistics
These updates will hopefully be every three weeks or so, with future notifications to be much less breathless, and contain much less stuff, while I find my way among the majority of you that are better-traveled than I am. Since some of you are currently on voyages and doing much more exciting things than my gripping experiences of Excel and PowerPoint, please send your own dispatches...
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