Monday, September 17, 2007

What to Say?

I haven’t updated the blog in a long time and although I have a bunch of topics swirling in my head putting them down on the computer has been a little bit hard for me.

Let’s see I’m back from my work trip to Africa and I’ve decided to make it my mission to get back to West Africa as soon as I can. Despite the 12 hour work days I had the best time. There’s just something about Mali and Senegal (where I ended up for a long weekend) that has me wanting more experiences. Hopefully next time I’m there I’ll be traveling with someone who I can do some traveling with. The one regret I have is that I spent a month in Mali and only headed outside of the capital once. As a woman I don’t travel alone to remote locations in foreign countries EVER. I hate that I had to limit myself and missed out on a chance to travel to Dogon Country and Timbuktu but I’m just a stickler for personal safety and I’m not that type of person who straps on a back pack and goes on an adventure alone. Next time though I’ll be better organized and hopefully will have someone I can tag as a traveling partner.

I did manage to make it to Dakar, Senegal to visit a friend for a long weekend. It was a great weekend and I was able to visit Goree Island and hang with some of her family and friends. My last vacation was to also visit a friend and while I loved the sightseeing aspect of my trips I also loved interacting with the family and friends.

On an extremely sad note one of my colleagues is dying. He’s been diagnosed with a degenerating lung condition and there’s no cure. He goes into the hospital later on next week to do a biopsy to figure out if there’s a way to make him more comfortable. They’re also unsure of how long he’ll have to live. It can be just a few months or up to 2 years. I’ve also had another colleague die in the last year of cancer so we’re all really weirded out about this.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Flash Back....

I’m sitting here writing my report and watching some video channel out of France that pretty much plays hip hop, R&B and African jams all day long. Their “Legend” hour is on and they played this little number.



Talk about blast from the past. At first I figured this song came out when I was in 8th grade but then looked it up and realized I was actually already in 11th grade when this one came out. Either way I immediately thought of Sunday afternoons when my mom would once in a while head over to Tower Records on Broadway and buy tapes. I remember having this tape and think I may have thrown it out along with the other fifty-eleven tapes I had under my bed collecting dust.

Oh now they're playing Vogue! I loved, loved this song.


I remember during the Pajama Jam my senior year this song came on and this guy I had a crush on danced the entire video voguing moves and all. I mean the ENTIRE thing. The following year I heard he came out. Like duh I should have figured that out when he did the entire Vogue
routine.

Ok now they're playing "Hey Mr. DJ". I can no longer concentrate on work. I'm off to begin the dance off in front of the mirror in my hotel room.



Hope everyone is having a fab Labor Day Weekend!