A different break

After debating whether I should go with my INSEAD friends to Iceland, the UK, Italy, or elsewhere in the world, I ended up deciding to spend the P4-P5 break at home. I had an endless to do list, Gorda and the rest of the family missed me, money is slowly running out our account. It would make no sense to have spent it elsewhere.

So how did I spend my break? Wanna see my (checked) to do list?

• Visited our new house a couple of times to monitor the progress of the construction work and to come up with decor ideas

• Picked the layette (bed sheets, edredon, pillows, and so on) for our new home as Mom's and Dad's wedding present

• Prepared our list of wedding presents, based on what I decided in terms of decoration

• Gathered all the necessary info for our friend and designer Zedi to upload the wedding present list on our website (still in progress)

• Filled in hundreds of envelops with wedding invites and wrote names and addresses of all our guests

• Started handing in a few invitations - all the others will be sent via mail later this week

• Checked kids’ stores to try to come up with an outfit for the two babies getting in the church with me

• Met with a priest to formalise our wedding papers

• Tried the manicure and face cleasing services that I will use on my wedding day

• Add a dancing class with Gorda, Mom and Dad to get ready for the big day

• Met with our wedding planners to decide upon flowers and disposition of tables

• Filled my tax papers

• Helped my bridesmaid and bride Perry in her wedding dress developments

• Attended Perry’s engagement party

• Caught up with some reading

• Had a few more interviews

• Attended quite a few dinner events with my friends

• Briefly showed Lisbon to a few INSEAD friends in town

• Had a family lunch with the Bentos and a family snack with the Amorins to celebrate Mother’s Day

• Babysit for my (dog-)niece Cookie for a day

• AND MORE

It has been an incredibly productive week, but very tiring too. Tonight, I slept 9 hours - something that rarely happens to me. Now it is time to kick two weeks of classes, before another 2.5-week break. I managed to front load most of my classes. It seems that P5 will be kind of a joke.

Will write a post about P4 very, very soon. Keep in touch!