“Welcome,Sir”. “Good evening,Sir”. I take a deep breath. End of today’s trip. I am home. But is it home? No, but these greetings are reassuring and familiar by now. They remind me of the country where I live now when I enter the lobby of the Marriot airport hotel in Manila. I recognise some of the staff as I have been here a few times now. Always arriving in the evening and leaving very early […]
I want my arrival to be a celebration of the past 25 years not, as someone asked recently, will it give you closure?
‘ I can’t imagine doing any other kind of work. Your work should be an act of love, not a marriage of covenience’ The Kideny-shaped Stone, Murakami Haruki
I remember collecting sign books for some years. One day I got hold of one of the Italian publishing house Adelphi. Pink color, with just one sentence on it by, Gayus Plinius Secundus also known as Plinius the “Old”, born in 24 B.C. in Como. The rough English translation of Plinius sentence could be: ‘there is not such thing as a bad book where you cannot learn at least one thing’. After that i bought […]
Here is my contribution on working remotely in the last issue of ODEye, the internal newsletter of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Far away, but still so close (with a little help from IT and PRINCE2) The Wim Wenders movie Der Himmel über Berlin is– the story of two angels who comfort mortals, but cannot be seen by them. Images from that movie came to mind when I was asked to contribute to ODEye and […]
‘Thus the seasons come and go, and the years pass by. I’ll age one more year, and probably finish another novel. One by one, I will face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can. Focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long-range view, scanning the horizon as far ahead as I can. I am, after all, a long-distance runner’ ‘The end of the race is just […]
PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. Its the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four […]
A picture video with music suggested by Max Box
During ten months, from February to November 2006, I have been writing my doctoral dissertation at the University of Tampere. Simon Down, a lecturer from the University of Newcastle who gave a presentation in a two day seminar at the University of Vaasa in April 2006, described the PhD as the most intense period of the academic life of an individual. During those months I have been thinking about a metaphor that could describe this […]