Halloween 2007

Hard to believe Halloween has already come and gone and it’s now November. Craziness.

However, this year the holiday seemed a bit more traditional to me than last. To kick things off, in the grand tradition of the Circus apartment last year, Nadia and I hosted an intern Halloween party at our apartment.
I was the muthaflippin’ Rhymenoceros (Bret’s rapping name) from Flight of the Conchords.

It loses a little something out of context, yet still stands on its own.



And a couple of the night’s best costumes:


Yaron as some sort of Australian(?) hayseed


Harold and the purple crayon


Okay, so Nadia’s friend Ian didn’t actually have a costume, but he quickly improvised which I found quite amusing


Part of the gang hanging out in our common room


Ain’t no party like my nana’s tea party…


I also carved a pumpkin this year (they were actually selling them in some of the local grocery stores!)…





…and toasted the seeds




On Halloween night itself I set my first trail for the running group (the Hash House Harriers) I’m part of here. My co-“hare” Pete and I did a Halloween-themed costumed run which ended up going quite well, despite running almost 24 km (having to run the trail twice, once to set and once on the actual run).


The reverse of my pumpkin, decked out for the occasion.


Pete and I both conveniently decided to be vampires for the evening


Part of the group circling up before the run


For those without costumes, we enforced a strict apple-bobbing requirement




Our dinner was at Chez ma Cousine, one of the best deals in Geneva featuring salad, fries, and half a chicken for around 15 Swiss Francs

All in all, a fun week of activities and a great way to celebrate my favorite holiday. We even saw several groups of kids our trick-or-treating during the run, which is proof that Westernization is growing—which I think, in this case, is a good thing.

I Am Faster Than P. Diddy

Yesterday, after 5 months and about 543 miles of training, I ran my first full marathon in 3 hours 40 minutes and 1 second.

Not an especially amazing time, but not too bad either.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this race was a New Year’s resolution of sorts, celebrating the 5th anniversary of becoming a runner in the first place (which was my resolution back in 2002). Marathons are kind of a strange beast: thousands of people run them, yet they are pretty subcultural. Mainstream enough for episodes of sitcoms from The Critic to Seinfeld to be devoted to them, yet nothing that would ever get the media coverage of a team sport. The Geneva Marathon itself was a little different (smaller) than the half marathons I’ve run in, so the spectacle wasn’t there, but rest assured that 42.16 kilometers is the same thing as 26.2 miles. And it was nice to have several co-workers and Hashers out along the course for support.

Having now participated in both, I can say that a half-marathon is much saner than the whole thing. The race started out great and I managed to keep up with the 3.5 hour pacer for 33 km, but then my legs started to really bother me so I had to back it off a bit, with my mind losing the battle to my body. It was definitely the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done, but I made across the finish line and can now cross another thing off the “Life Goals” list. Now I just have to someday qualify for and run Boston...

And, as you can see from the title, I am indeed faster than P. Diddy (who “ran the city” of New York a couple years ago in just under 4 hours 15 minutes).

I’ll probably post some photos over the next week or so as they become available from friends and the race website.

Life Updates

Life in Geneva continues to roll on.

I’m part of the core team for Shema which has been a nice way to get connected to people in the city with similar passions for community, Christ, and social justice. It’s also been a good creative outlet to get to do design for their flyers and such. I’ve also been attending the baptist church’s young adults group (YAGS) which is a good way to meet more English-speakers around my age outside of the office. Plus, the Hash continues to be an excellent mid-week release and having been here 5 months already, I feel like I have a good group of friends there.

Work has been busy but good since I’ve returned. This past week we celebrated the beginning of a new partnership with the Christian and Presentation Brothers which are two Ireland-based groups working on behalf of children around the world. As part of that, Nicki and I got to work up some logos for their org which will be called Edmund Rice International (after both groups’ founder). I’ve also been working on materials for FI’s campaign centering around St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s 800th anniversary, amdist other more mundane projects.

My two New Year’s resolutions are 1) to run the full Geneva Marathon on May 6th (coincidentally the same day as Cincinnati’s Flying Pig) and 2) to try and regularly complete the New York Times crossword puzzle. Marathon training has been nice so far due to the temperatures, but I’m sure they can’t hold out for the whole winter. Still, by the time I get to my major distance runs leading up to the race, it’ll be spring so everything will work out.
Inspired by finally seeing the documentary Wordplay, I thought the crossword might be a nice way to challenge myself on a daily basis. After all, I used to be kind of smart, so I could probably stand the stimuli. So far I’m pretty much a Monday-Wednesday level, but maybe by the end of the year I’ll be able to take a crack at the weekend edition.

I also hope to put my portfolio online at some point this year, which I’ve been saying for awhile, but I actually have all my work gathered together now so it shouldn’t be too long before I do something with it.

In the coming months I will be traveling to Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, and potentially Amsterdam. If you’ve been to any of these cities and have suggestions of places to visit, eat at, or anything else please feel free to let me know.