The mental journey home

After a great week in the Slovenian mountains, another (also great, even though I had to miss the mountains) week as an organiser on our BEST Career Event, a lovely ball with the 'Unifac' student union in Antwerp, and a day to crash after all the (some practically, some totally) sleepless nights, I am back home and online again.
Although travelling from one event to the other is great fun and gives a kick at the time, there is one great disadvantage to it... the fact that you do not have time to enjoy the 'sink in' of the first event before going to the next. I have experienced this symptom a couple of times before and it leaves me, like now, feeling slightly lost and disoriented. The feeling you have when your thoughts don't know where to go first, your mind doesn't know where to start sorting all the memories and you just end up missing everybody and everything... a lot.
One day and night of sleep might be enough to recover from the physical journey home, in the end it just brings us to the point, not where we end, but where we start the mental journey home.

Give me two more days, and I'll be all yours again!

Exit Exams

After one hour of sleep and seven hours of exam, what is more refreshing than blogging a bit? Going for a beer? Exactly, that's also on my program for tonight. So, apparently, are a lot of other things. There's a list here beside my laptop happily yelling 'work for after the exams and before Ljubljana'. That's now. Hey, when did this list get so long? These things seem to grow so easily while you're studying.
Oops, there's some important things here as well... Enroll for exams. Yes, better not forget that! Don't want the past month's efforts to have been for nothing! Master thesis meeting, tomorrow. Design facilitation training, by Friday. Organise BEST Ghent Career Event, with subdivisions. Select trainshop participants, tonight. Online meeting, tomorrow. Check second semester courses, exactly. Mend bike, ah yes. Clean room. Really? <...> Obviously. Apply for EGU Symposium student status, could save me 200 euros! Warn music school about absence, should have done that a month ago. LifeXP team meeting, important. Buy 'topics' for International Evening, BEST insider. Practice guitar, considering the lenght of my nails... Mail <a long list of people>. Call <idem dito>. Go home for a day. It's been five weeks!
Hey, wait a minute. My list does not say 'write blog'. I should add that. And I should get going, I have work to do :-)

Poem for a friend

After last post's lovely poem from John McCrae, here is one of my own hand. It's not exactly recent, but it's one of my own favourites. I wrote it four years ago for a very dear friend of mine. This poem will always be his, but if you have a friend that needs comfort, then feel free to pass it on.

When summer turns suddenly autumn
and the icy winds start to blow
You follow the long lonely road
cause there's no other way to go

All the surroundings have got blurred
and the rain cries along with you
In the distance behind the horizon
the sun is setting out of view

The sea is wild and stormy
there's lightning on the waves
And life as she moves on
leaves behind her too many graves

If I were an angel I'd leave heaven
to guide you on your way
If I were a star I'd give you warmth
to brighten this sorrowful day

If I were a dove I'd fly for you
as a messenger to other spheres
I wish I could make you a reality
with no more pain and tears

But I am just a friend,
and through this poem I try to share
A little of the hurt
And show you that
I care...