Live, from New York...

... it's Saturday morning!

Hmmm. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

But here I am, finally, in New York. At least for now. For the first week, I spent all my days in a giddy-happy delirium. I'm not sure you would know the kind I mean, as I had certainly never experienced anything quite like it before, but there I was, constantly grinning. Get in the elevator. Grin. Buy groceries. Grin. Wait for the little red hand to turn into a little white man so you can cross the street. Grin. I grinned in the sun, I grinned in the rain, I grinned when it got so windy that tornadoes hit Brooklyn. Honestly, if I hadn't been so damn happy I would have found myself insufferable.

Fortunately for all, except maybe me, the giddy-happy had to pass. I suppose it was too good to be true. Reality had to hit me eventually. So now, while reasonably pleased with the part of my situation that involves being in New York, I am also stressed. Stressed that I will have to leave New York because no one will have me. Stressed that I am not entirely sure which of my Plans A or B would actually be better for me in the long run (more on the various Plans in future posts, I promise). Stressed that I am running out of money. Stressed that I have some kind of brain-eating fungus that has resulted in me leaving the house once without my wallet and once without my keys in the same week.

And because stress is always accompanied by pints of ice cream and the inability to say no to hamburgers, it has also come with a side of extra weight and the consequent additional stress of not being able to fit into my clothes.

That being said, well, stress schmess, I say. I'm in New York! In the past three days, I have seen stand-up comedy, Molly Ringwald and Siri Hustvedt. Tonight, I'm going to the theatre to experience Ibsen on Broadway. Tomorrow, I have yoga class. Some of my closest friends in the world are but a subway ride away. The sun is shining over the West Village outside my window.

Oh, here we go. Giddy happy is making a comeback!

Who ate all the pies?

I know, I know, I'm unforgivable. I wouldn't blame you if you're fed up to there with my nonsense, or more precisely my failure to write about said nonsense in a punctual and reliable manner. I'm such a disappointment to you.

Trust me, I know just how you feel. I'm very often similarly disappointed with myself. When will I ever just get my shit together and move on, you and I may both, on occasion, wonder? Why do I always seem to get stuck on one thing, and then another? Why can't I just be one of the women that glides? You know the ones I mean. The gliders. Smooth. Elegant. Eternally in a state of not-stuck-ness. They just move right along, right past you, like they're on goddam ice-skates.

Me, I just hop from one pot-hole to the next and sprain my ankle in the process.

I have never been a glider. I am a serial pot-hole monogamist, in all aspects of my life. I can only truly care about one thing at a time... and that time is usually rather short. (This is starting to explain a few things, isn't it?) Relationships, jobs, geographic locations, hobbies, you name it, I've gotten hopelessly stuck in one and suddenly moved right along.

It's time to make a change. From this day forth, I vow to be a serial pot-hole polygamist. (What, you thought I was going to get up and start to glide all over the place? Let's be serious. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that...) Or, put in a slightly less unusual visual metaphor, I will have many fingers in many pies. I will find a way to be passionate about a plethora of wildly inconsistent things, in order to avoid becoming a boring one-apple-pie kind of girl or overly crushed when said apple pie falls apart before I'm ready to move on to the rhubarb.

Okay, now things have gotten so weirdly metaphorical that I'm both very confused and rather peckish, as I assume you are. So let's just leave it there. Things they are a-changin', that's all I'm saying. Details to follow.

Before the turn

The "part one" reference below would seem to preempt a "part two." But part two is not in me right now. Part two has gone awol. On a hiatus from the here and now.

Much like me.

So we're back to "part... zero." Or, in more accurate scientific terms, "part n-1." What "n" turns out to be is anybody's guess right now. Less than 10 days ago, "n" was an almost-certainty, but that's science for you. Everything seems so nice and definite and logical and then all of a sudden Pluto's not a planet and maybe some things actually travel faster than the speed of light (or maybe the calculator's just broken).

So we're back at the cross-roads. I've been here before, it seems. Like a child in Dedaleus' labyrinth, I turn a corner only to reach another (or is it the same?) fork in the road. And not a Minotaur in sight. But the deluded optimist in me tells me this time, the turn will be the right one, whether the path is more or less traveled by, it will be the path for me. My path. N-th time's the charm.

But before the turn, I take a moment to stand still. Collect my thoughts. Accept the blank slate before me. Or not so much a blank slate but a letter, that has been started over and over again, crumpled up and tossed in the trash, then pulled out and pressed more or less smooth again. (Remember those? Before the advent of the deceptive "delete" button?) But you can still write beautiful words on crumpled paper, surely. Can't you?

So wrinkled and smudged, but hopeful. This is how I start out today. At n-1, once more.

Goodbye Helvetica - part one

Still getting on with it (in fact, I will use the extent to which I've been "getting on with it" as an excuse for my absence from these virtual pages. Because I can). Still nothing to report though. "It" remains undefined for the time being, so you'll have to bear with me. I promise you'll know as soon as I do.

In the meantime, ready or not, my departure from Switzerland approaches at the speed of an oncoming tram. Which means it's time to reflect on what I have learned (or stubbornly refused to learn) during my almost-two years in this quirky version of a country.

Warning: I'll probably end up offending someone. I usually do. Whatever I may have said or am about to say, it should not be taken as an indictment of Switzerland as a whole, or the Swiss in general. I have lots of lovely Swiss friends. Well, actually, I have one Swiss friend. She is very lovely though. And in her honour, I will start by counting down the top 5 things I will miss about Switzerland (other than the friends I've made here). I wanted to do a top 10, of course, à la David L., but I couldn't think of ten. Damn, I've gone and offended someone already, haven't I...

5: How every single bus, tram, and train is connected and freakishly on time. So that you can cross the country and schlep up to a high-altitude village in the middle of nowhere, employing five different modes of transportation, and arrive exactly when the SBB website said you would, without having waited more than a couple minutes at any stop along the way. There's some kind of evil mathematical genius behind all this, I'm certain of it.

4: Hiking in the mountains to the constant sound of cowbells. If you only do it a couple times a year, the ringing doesn't get too annoying. And those cows are pretty great-looking. As are the mountains. Breaking out into song à la Julie Andrews is not unheard of (and yes, I know that was Austria, but you know what I mean).

3: Chocolate. Oh heavenly goodness. The Swiss do know their chocolate. Sprüngli and Läderach, how I will miss you (my waistline, however, will not).

2: Trams (yes, there's a bit of a public transportation theme, here). God, I love the trams. Every city in the world should have trams (and I applaud those that already do). Trams are far superior to subways. They're clean and bright and allow you to look out the window and daydream (ironically, in my case, most of my daydreams involve being on the A train...)

1: Drinking Aperol Spritz by a lake, or a river, or whatever body of water is closest (there is bound to be one, wherever you are in Switzerland). There's something about bright orange bubbly alcoholic drinks that just screams summertime. I plan on exporting a cartload of Aperol on my way out of here. Now, granted, Aperol Spritz is also available in Italy. Plus, if you drink it there, well, then, you're in Italy. But it will always mean Switzerland to me...

So there you go. I'm not entirely biased against Switzerland. Give me a ringing cow, some chocolate, a glass of something orange and plonk me on a tram by a lake and I'm a happy girl.

In my next post, I will explore the many mysteries of Switzerland that, try as I may, I have never been able to figure out.

Outsourced introspection

Let me take advantage of this brief, 20-minute respite in the Crazy Summer of Sport (Roland Garros final rained out and in the break between two football matches) to pop in and say hello to my blog.

Hello blog.

I've been feeling a bit rain delayed myself, lately. The drops keep falling on this, my last "summer" in Switzerland, and I'm in the locker room, waiting. Have I done enough to set myself up to succeed? Will this be a relatively painless three-setter or will I have to slog through 5 sets, not knowing if it will all end in the sweet embrace of victory or in pieces, broken and covered in clay and pretending like I don't want to shatter that silver platter over someone's head.

Clearly, I've been watching too much tennis.

Anyhoo... as I wait to see if the "interviews" work out (and yes, they have as much chance of being interviews than the summer in Zurich has chances of actually being a summer, hence the ironic written air-quotes), I've continued on the path to self-enlightenment by letting my nearest and dearest have a go at enlightening me, for a change. (If there's one thing this management malarkey has taught me, it's how to delegate).

And oh! the responses! They came from the four corners of the world, from friends who have known me since I was fresh out of diapers, from family who knew me before then, from professors who fielded my angst-ridden questions and from all the wonderful people I've met in between (almost all of them women - which says something about something but let's not get into that). I am now surrounded by dozens of shining mirrors, and basking in their soft reflective glow, flaws and all.

Each of the mirrors were asked to answer four questions, identifying in turn my skills, what motivates me, my long-term goals and the myriad of ways in which I'm likely to get in my own way and screw things up (and really, only the people who have known you since before you learned how to lie your way into adulthood have the ability to oh-so-accurately pinpoint exactly what makes you such a mess).

The results were at once flattering, thought-provoking, embarrassing and entertaining. Almost everyone agreed on my skills (I guess I don't have that many). Most commentators had similar things to say regarding my motivations and goals (and those two categories overlapped to a large extent). But everyone had a unique perspective on my flaws - and of course I think they're all spot on.

So there we are then: a few skills, some relatively clear (albeit contradictory) motivations and goals, and a host of really bad habits it's high time I did something about (because who would want to hire - much less date - an impatient, emotionally fragile, intolerant perfectionist?; that chick sounds like a total drag).

But being the analytical, creative, action-oriented kind of gal I am, who is moreover unfazed by complexity, I have turned my mirrors' answers into the nifty graphic below so we can all have a good chuckle and I can feel better about the whole thing.

There it is. You are now blessed with the collective intelligence of everyone I've ever met, in one slide. Lucky you.

Enlightenment: check.

Up next: getting on with it.

Grinch

Do you have any idea how hard it is to give yourself a spiritual makeover? You would think a snip here, a tuck there, a trip to Bali, a few exercises in positive thinking and... drum roll please! Out comes a fantastic new you.

I wish. Have you ever seen a snake molt? No? Well, me neither, but somehow I have the image buried deep in the recesses of my mind where all my 5th grade science lessons live that when that old, flaky skin peels right off the snake, he has all the same spots and stripes and snazzy colors that he did before. I suppose there's a lesson in that.

I'm currently on Day 9 of a 21-day positive psychology experiment that requires me to exercise, meditate, perform an act of kindness, note down something positive that happened and feel grateful about three things... every single day. Seriously. Every day. That's 21 acts of kindness. 21 days of something positive happening in between going to work, spilling coffee on yourself and eating too many of those chocolate nougat candies that have been sitting on your desk since the Christmas party. And 63 distinct and unique things to be grateful for. I mean come on. Can anybody actually do that? For 21 days in a row? Really. Really?

But I have learned something very important about myself in the process. Something you, dear reader, probably already knew. That's right. As it turns out, I like complaining. I'm a complainer. I'm just more Avenue Q than Sesame Street. And while I recognise the importance of positive thinking as a concept and a great facilitator for world peace, it just isn't very realistic to expect it from someone like me every single day.

And that's alright. I believe it's healthy and terribly grown up to own up to one's shortcomings. It's the soul's equivalent of professional development and 360° feedback. It's cleansing. Like this tidbit from a certain professor a few weeks ago (and a bit of a mentor of mine), who looked me straight in the eye and said "Sure, I get it. You want to feel like you belong. But first you're going to have to commit to something." Touché.

Can't commit. Loves to have a good grumble. God, I sound like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. And green is so not my color...

Of control freaks and artists

A couple weeks ago I was in New York, gorging on sushi, egg-white omelets, affordable Starbucks coffee and INSEAD reunion madness. (And yes, there were a "few" job hunting expeditions as well). Every year (since last year), the INSEADers of "the Americas" (so very Chris Columbus) have a little shindig with exciting panelists and high-brow debate followed by a fancy dress party in true Fonty fashion (this year's theme: Mad Men - without all the Lucky Strikes).

The panelists were CEOs and professors, all of a duly impressive caliber (and mostly male, but hey, it's business school after all), debating the question of what makes a leader - as an individual, as a company, as a political bigwig. Most of it sounded very sensible and I'm sure the speakers know better than me, but there were a couple points I took issue with.

The first was when a CEO of a rather large company involved in real estate stated with conviction that being a leader is the bee's knees because you get to control everything. Wow, really? You mean, like God? Now I'm sure that leadership attracts a lot of control freaks. Like yours truly. The vision of that blessed state where you get to tell everyone what to do and make them to it your way or else - heck, it's what us anally retentive neurotics have been salivating over since we reached kindergarten.

But in my experience, becoming a leader means learning to let go. Because you won't be able to control everything. There's always going to be someone making you do something you don't want to do (another department, your competition, your clients, the government, your priest, your significant other, whatever - there's always someone). And all those people you shout orders to from up high? Well, chances are they're not going to do things exactly the way you would have done it. Because they're people, not robots. Not clones. Not you. To avoid popping an aneurism you will just have to learn to relax and work on your tolerance levels (as my friends and family keep reminding me).

So I don't know what kind of leader this panelist is (a male one, by the by), but leadership to me is the most out of control situation there is.

The second point had to do with the welfare state, which got quite a bashing. Fair enough, the European welfare state model hasn't performed very well of late. So I understand why the unanimous position on the panel was that the State should get out of the way and let individuals (i.e. entrepreneurs) take over and kick-start the economy. But one of my favourite INSEAD professors had noted earlier on in the day that leaders are like artists. And if that is true, I think it may be worth remembering that, historically, art has blossomed when the State has gotten involved and supported the arts, and shrivelled without that support. So is it so outrageous to suggest that, in a time of crisis, the State should become more, not less implicated by supporting budding leaders (through education, small business loans, what have you)? Long live the welfare state and government involvement, I say - it's just a question of definining what welfare and involvement we need for leadership to blossom like a Titien.

Well, that's enough attempt at seriousness from me. Next up, I will do my best satisfy W's request and go back to some spiritual introspection and what not. In the meantime, please go forth, enjoy the sunshine, lose control and support a local artist.