...smoking is a curtain between you and your Creator

Oh what a funny day. What an amazing day in an enchanting country with some of the most splendid people!! I know I sound high I just absolutely love it here.. to the point where I'm wondering if I should start looking for a job here!

So I don't know whether to dedicate this entry to "Hot chocolate to Eat" or if I should dedicate it to opportunities that seem to fall out of the sky, or I don't know if I should dedicate it to those blessed souls with some serious vision, and concrete ways on how to achieve these visions. Whatever it is, I'm much happier to be here than anywhere else in the world right now, but only because I have passed through the halls of learning from insanely-backwards-Bangui, from corporate-world-LA, from doesn't-work-so-great Malta, and this Sunday - to Turkey!! Wow. My life is so, so beautiful.

So I started off the day rushing to the Habitat Office. Watched Irene practically have a nervous breakdown having so much to do before we leave for Turkey on Sunday and then finding out that she has to go with the volunteers to the site all day on Saturday. There's nothing like finding out on FRIDAY that you're dumped with work on SATURDAY. It sucks being an intern but it also reminds me how grateful I was that my old bosses at Capital would phrase things like "what is your workload today" or giving me something like a week's notice before a project was due. I really, really appreciate that. I was so angry for Irene and more angry to watch her just kind of.. sit in shock. I was a bit loud mouthed about how rude I thought that was but I think that our office was a bit too far from the others. It was really.. hard watching Irene work, because it reminded me of myself when I was at my pre-Unicef job. Watching her get dumped on, seeing her colleagues leave 2 hours before she did, it was just all sucky to relive.

At around 11am the President comes in for our informal meeting. He asked yesterday if he could come in to get a quick idea of how microcredit works and what Kiva was exactly. Before I could attend the meeting though, he caught me out on the balcony having a cigarette. He came out and said "you know.. I'm sure you've heard that this is bad for you, yes, but we will die from many possible things, but this.. this smoking is a curtain between you and your Creator! He wants to work through you but when he gets close, he can't find you behind this curtain. You will never realize your full potential in this lifetime without Him being able to reach you. That's what happened to me when I stopped smoking!"

LIKE WOAH. Nobody has ever tried that tactic with me. People have threatened me with predictions of a painful death, agonizingly bad health, and broken relationships. But nobody has ever warned me of not being able to realize my POTENTIAL I LIFE!!! Oh HELL NO! =) For some reason it was the exact convoluted but meaningful reasoning, at the exact right time. I've been very good since yesterday - maybe 2 ciggies a day. And hope it'll just go down to zero from here. This trip has been full of unexpected blessings.

The crew of Sandro, Ricardo, Irene and I went to a movie last night - first movie in AGES! I was so excited.. we saw something with Nick Cage, hoping it would be a cool thrilled. Ended up sucking ass and I felt distinctly frayed after the movie - that's no good at all. Should have watched the last Fast & Furious or Star Trek or something! All went back to Irene's house and stayed up talking and watching Friends. I love being with my friends in Portugal =) Sandro asked when I'm moving, haha! It's the second time someone has said something similar to me, this place just feels so much like home.