Even though the course is less than stellar, and I will not walk away with great inspirations about being a better leader to a remote team (like I’d hoped), I am still thankful for:
– a lovely conversation over pork chops and steak with a kindred spirit and fairly new friend
– an evening walk in the drizzly rain
– the B&B host who brings me tea while I’m sitting at the computer
– the two people I share breakfast with – the business man with a heart of gold, and the Spanish girl studying English as a second language
– the realization that I am a better leader than I thought because I already know most of the stuff I’m here to learn
– a wander in Kensington Market complete with a bowl of veg curry at the funky Urban Herbivore
– dim sum with one of my oldest (by that I mean “longest”) friends in the world
– the a-ha moment when I realized that I could do a better job of facilitating this workshop than the person who’s getting paid big bucks to do it
– an hour to waste time in Timbuktu, one of my favourite stores EVER
– an evening with a bottle of wine, two blue wine glasses, Wallace and Gromit, some cheap snacks, and my friend Laurel
– some funky doodle art – the only thing I seem to be accomplishing at the workshop
– thankfulness that I don’t have to make decisions like “whether to do off-shore outsourcing”, like one section of the workshop is teaching and like so many in the course have to do
– wandering into a Chinese bakery for a pastry and cup of tea, and realizing I’ve stumbled on the Chinese version of Cheers in the heart of Chinatown
– an hour in a comfy chair in front of a big window on the second floor of a bookstore
– wandering through the conservatory and breathing deeply of the many smells of green
– subways, cable cars, people watching, hustling, bustling downtown urban life
– birds on a wire, and other photo-worthy moments
– time to write, time to zone out in front of a television, time to wander
– watching a great movie all by myself in a cheap theatre
– looking forward to going home to my family
