A long-awaited update...

...ok, lots of stuff has happened since my last posting. Pretty much all of it not good. My nan passed away. My parents had their passports stolen in Europe. My mum had a minor stroke when visiting me here. Then my parents had their camera stolen when they were in Lisbon (after visiting me). How's that for rotten luck, eh?

I don't want to dwell on all that too much. Suffice to say that my parents' holiday in Europe has been the holiday from hell, what with my nan passing away and with my mum's health issues (she had to get rushed to hospital last week (while visiting me here in Boston) after suffering what apparently was a minor stroke. Thank God there wasn't that much damage to her heart. I'm desperately worried - I don't know what else can go wrong, honestly. It seems as though every single thing that could go wrong, has. At least while they were here in Boston (they came early because of the whole stolen passport fiasco) they seemed to be a bit relaxed. But it's tough having to change all your flights and hotel bookings because your visas haven't come through.

Oh well. Fingers crossed that this will finally be the end of all the misfortune. This is supposed to be a pilgrimage for them, after all. They're in Lisbon right now, and I think they're heading on to Rome after this, and then Geneva to visit Tito Rick. Then back to London to see Maryrose.

Let's move on to me. I'm currently a bit over halfway through my second last semester. It's time to start seriously looking for jobs - you can never start too early. My schedule got a bit disrupted when my
folks were here, but you can't really complain. Family is more important than anything.

I should say something about my internship. It was, in a word, awesome. I essentially had two major deliverables:

• complete a strategic audit of Global Airworks' (one of GEPT's divisions) business processes and provide recommendations, with a view to improving profitability
• complete a valuation for Astrophysics (another GEPT division) with a view to a possible divestiture

I really loved my internship, because it allowed me to make use of all the skills that I learned during the first year of my MBA - strategic analysis, valuations, financial analysis, etc - none of what I did was related to my previous work experience. The work environment was excellent - Johnny is an inspirational boss/entrepreneur and his path is the exact same path that I would like to follow when I graduate. I learned so much from it and LA was heaps of fun too! Met some really cool people in LA and partied a little bit - LA is more like Sydney in that clubs don't close at 2am - they close about 3 or 4am, still earlier than in Sydney but later than in Boston. And it's Convenience City - so many stores open late or 24 hours.

I'm not sure if I mentioned earlier that I took Mikka with me? She had her great cross-country adventure. She coped pretty well, actually - showed herself to be a very resilient cat. On the way there she was a bit stressed but on the way back I thought she did pretty well. Here's a pic!



Anyway, that's enough for now. More later.