A few random things...

I'm actually posting this from work while waiting for the bloody download of an account which refuses to reconcile. Yes, very exciting....

This is going to be a series of random points because I can't be bothered to structure it properly and because I haven't posted in a while. But first of all, happy St Paddy's!! Since I work for an Oirish NGO, I consider myself an honorary member of the race. Especially if they win the Grand Slam on Saturday.

1. Work eased up for a couple of weeks (or rather, I eased up on work for a couple of weeks, same difference) and is now pretty manic with very late reports and audits and prep for the next budget revision going on. This budget revision is going to be pretty diffcult to balance given that exchange rates have worsened and we have much less money - mostly due to DFID not coughing up on a proposal. Not looking forward to this at all,,,

2. Spent the weekend up in Furcy (in the mountains) "doing the Hash". The Hash is basically a walking and drinking club - due to about half of regular contingent being Americans in their early twenties, there seems to be an inordinate amount of beer worship going on and scenes straight out of my memories of undergrad which sometimes gets a bit old, especially as I can't stand beer and get bitter when faced with fresh-faced youngsters with their whole lives ahead of them and that particular arrogance that you generally see with the young and stupid.

However, it was indeed a fantastic walk and bumped into a few old friends. Also, met and shook hands with the President - Rene Preval!! He was a lot shorter than I had imagined, and dressed far more casually. One of us actually dared to ask him to pose in a photo and got a kiss on the cheek for her pains. Bitch.

3. Having an old uni friend coming over for just over a week towards the end of the month so having fun planning stuff to do. Have made a resolution to stop whining about Haiti and be Ms Positive from here on out.

4. Breaking that resolution immediately by giving a list of our "friends" (as Brian would say) for the year - apparently, this year is going to be even worse than the triple Gustav/Ike/Hanna whammy that we had last year. BTW, I have had so many comments about the third one that it's no longer funny:

Ana
Bill
Caroline
Danny
Erika
Fred
Grace
Henri
Ida
Joaquin
Kate
Larry
Mindy
Nicholas
Odette
Peter
Rose
Sam
Teresa
VictorWanda

My money's on Joaquin being a twat.

5. For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, a new report on security in Haiti has been released by International Crisis Group. Nothing at all surprising or dramatic - a bit of a "meh" report. There hasn't seemed to be an further trouble since the Lavalas party nomination debacle but this could just be the calm before the storm so cross fingers for April 19th.

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5952&l=1

6. Elections were over months ago but still feel like I should share this little titbit - it's a definite laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-_JhRJ0tWA

7. Some friends/colleagues have added up projector plus sheet plus gazebo by the pool plus Dominos pizza and come up with Sunday movie nights at Les Acajous. Currently, we've been watching early James Bond and can I just take this opportunity to say that Sean Connery is HOT. I mean really really scorching HOT. Phew!!