I woke up this morning with a hangover, which should be an indication that I am still subscribing to my work hard, play hard philosophy; actually, the 'play hard' part of that philosophy has been completely subsumed by the 'work hard' part of my life over the last couple of weeks, as my increasingly-hysterical recent posts have probably indicated. Today is the first day that I don't intend to do any work at all since I left for Berlin, and Berlin feels like a lifetime ago. It probably *was* a lifetime ago for my liver, but I digress. I am sitting in the office right now, but that's because I had left my laptop here last night when I left for dinner, and didn't feel like stumbling up to get it when I got back to my apartment around 3:30am. I don't intend to stay here much longer, which is exciting. Instead, I'm going to walk into the city centre, buy some aspirin, eat some lunch, and then meet up with Darragh, who is taking me to a library/museum with an apparently-amazing collection of rare books, particularly Asian manuscripts. Y'all know how much I love books, and also stuff from Asia, so it should be fun.
Last night was really nice, and I'm becoming increasingly sad that I'm leaving. I had spent all day in a stupid team-building exercise; we were supposed to have a team offsite, which traditionally involves doing something fun (and, in Dublin, getting drunk--people are much more relaxed about the whole drinking-with-your-manager thing here), but instead we had an 'onsite-offsite', which involved sitting around in a conference room all day and brainstorming. I've done so much freaking brainstorming in the past three months that my head hurts just thinking of it (or, more likely, my head hurts from the combination of the bright flourescent lights and the remnants of the wine and Guinness still circulating through my system). Granted, they tried to make it a little less conference-room-ish, which involved putting glowsticks around the place, moving the tables, and making us lounge on big beanbags instead of chairs. Don't get me wrong, I like the team I'm working with here, I like what they're doing, and I didn't mind spending a day hanging out on beanbags--but I always feel so fake during all of that team-building crap, and by the end of a full day of team-building, I'm so bitter that I had to spend an entire day burying my traditional desire to just get things done. Ugh.
Luckily, we went out for dinner after the team-building stuff, and my satisfaction levels definitely picked up. The restaurant was French, and the appetiser and main course were really good, but their creme brulee was astonishingly bad considering that it was a nice restaurant. The dinner conversation in my area of the table was quite amusing, even if I did end up sitting, virtually by accident, with Darragh, Kerry and Renate, who are the people I see the most, which defeats the purpose of a team dinner. Some of us went for drinks at a couple of pubs afterwards, then ended up at a guy's house, where the debauchery continued. I was definitely not in any bad shape last night, and I believe that I remember everything that happened, even if it is pleasantly fuzzy. Strangely, we ended up playing this weird game that involved trying to pick up a box with one's teeth without your knees or hands touching the ground; my first attempt was a success, but when they tore three inches off the top of the box, virtually everyone failed on the second round. In some ways it almost felt like college again, and I was extremely happy, mostly because there were no spreadsheets or powerpoints anywhere in my vicinity.
Like I said, I am going to miss being here--I've finally reached the point where I feel settled, even if I am hideously busy, and now I have to pick up and move again. Sigh. The people I was hanging out with last night were the same group that I got to know better in Berlin, and includes the team that I work with her (which, appropriately enough, seems to be one of the hardest-partying groups in the office). They're really lovely people, and there are a couple that I am becoming really close friends with, so it just sucks that I'm leaving. Also, the team gave me flowers yesterday at the end of the team-building thing, which helped to lift my spirits considerably, and made it harder to ignore that I only have two more days in the office here.
Then again, I've missed my friends and my life, and it's ironic that I'm just getting settled in here, since I felt that I was finally settled back into California when I left for Ireland. This summer won't be any more settled, and so I will see the people here again when I come back for a couple of weeks in September, and I'll see Darragh in India when I go there for a week in August. But, hopefully by winter I can get some semblance of a life back.
Okay, no more sitting in the office--it's too bad that the weather today promises to be bad, considering how gorgeous the past two weekends were when I was stuck in the office. But, I shall persevere. Have a great day!
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