Pumpkin Carving

So much fun! 9 people, 5 pumpkins and a huge pot of soup.
Lots of beer, some wine and a game of Cranium. How much better can it get?

Encounter in the woods

Two men randomly meet in the woods. Hobbes would say, in the state of nature they automatically compete about things and would end up in a fight in no time because the human condition in the state of nature is war all against all. He builds this whole theory around it and comes to pretty convincing conclusions about the way humans live together. There's just this little voice in me that doesn't want to accept, that people are just driven by desires and competition and that this necessarily has to lead to war all the time.

Maybe too idealistic?

Random encounter in the bus

Had the most interesting conversation with this old lady in the bus to New York on Friday afternoon. She was talking about her motivation to become a social change activist. She is probably around 70 years old, worked as a judge in New Orleans for most of her life and was very active to fight against racism and for women's rights. Her motivation to do this was based on her fear as a jew to have something like Nazism rise again. The fight against discrimination and injustice was her solution and her way to "repair the world". She thinks that only in a fair and stable environment everyone can feel secure enough, that something like the holocaust will not happen again. Interesting point of view. Port Authority bus terminal came up way too soon to finish our conversation and ask all the questions I wanted to ask her. Funny how you sometimes get in a conversation you would love to continue for much longer - as if 4 hours of talking in a bus wouldn't already be a long time to talk. Hope I'll see her again to continue talking...

Back in New York

Funny how some things change and others are still the same!

The strangest thing was seeing that huge bus depot off I-95 filled with blue and white buses and not the armee of yellow school buses anymore! Sad, that was such a welcoming sign for NYC for me! This yellow parking lot always put a smile in my face!

Then there's a Chipotle on the block of the AIESEC office now! Funny as if they had waited for a location on 26th street after all those letters from Mahbod and Jim.

But then you walk down to the subway and it still has the same smell and humidity, still has the same noice, still the same mix of people that just tells you, you're in New York. Walking by that little store on 26th street you realize with a smile that they still have that ugly golden mirror for $99 on the street, wonder if they're ever going to sell that one! Still feels very familiar to sit in this office, can't wait for some good food at my favourite restaurants here!