Putting a piece of paper under my pillow was no help at all

So I tried the pragmatic approach, last night on the train I read the prospectus through, and the subjects sounded very interesting and worthwhile. During the
presentation I went from being totally convinced to totally unsure
again. It was a good presentation, they did not hide anything.
There were 3 current students there as well.

On the train home I was trying to work out a timetable.
The crunch for me was the fact that you need, in addition to the workshops,
180 - 250 hours of study per module.
A module lasts 3 months. That is 15 hours a week, every week, for at least 2 years.
I have decided not to do it. To dedicate 15 hours a week of my time in addition to full time working, would mean all day every Saturday plus 2 hours a night after work, almost every evening. it would be doable if it was for a short period, but not for 2 years.

Where would be the time to relax, to meet friends, blog, play scrabble, read a book, watch TV, take a walk, go skiing, go to the gym?
So that is it. Decision made. I was a bit disappointed, but ce la vie. Something else will turn up.

Tomorrow evening is the info evening for the MBA course I am thinking about committing to. But I am still in a dilemma as to what to do.
The course is in English, which is a +
Everyone is getting MBA's these days, so I should too ( not really the best reason to do it)
It is in Basel, which is probably about 1 hr 45 mins from home, which is a minus, but I would only have to go up there for workshops 4 times a quarter, so that is a +, apart from they start at 8.30 on a Saturday morning

Then there is whether I can apply myself to doing all the work. It will be interesting enough, and I do like to keep refreshing my skills, but will I really have time working full time, with a family etc to commit to it?

Man this is difficult. I think I need to write it on a piece of paper, put it under my pillow and sleep on it tonight, and hope that I dream what I should do.

I will let you know what I decide.

As an aside, my youngest brother told me tonight he never reads my blog, and i know my other brother doesn't either. Shame on them is all I can say.

Last night we had our Church group meeting, we have yet another locum, a retired bishop. He seems very nice, they all are so far. Talks very posh though, must be from the home counties I think.
Anyway, we were doing a Bible study, and I was nominated to lead it. At one point, to illustrate how Faith can help some people in times of trouble, I mentioned the McCanns as an example of this.
The woman across the table shot me such a look. Her face turned red, and she become increasingly agitated. IN her opinion the McCanns were involved in the death of their child, the Christianity they professed was just a cover, they were using us all. She found it easier to believe that it was much more likely that they were guilty, than any policeman would try and press a charge where there was none to be answered. They were drunk she said, out every night, leaving those children.
Her information came from the internet, but of course " she didn't believe all of it"
Someone did ask how she knew what was the truth in that case, how she could be so sure.
I think we were all shocked by the strength of her reaction, and it reminded me of a modern day witch hunt.
Personally I don't believe the McCanns were involved, but I was not about to argue with my friend, but it did remind me just how devisive this case still is, and will remain so for a long time I think.
I feel that i will probably get comments to this post to illustrate this as well

my 12 year old rang me today. She got her school report, and has the best marks in the whole class

She is on a high now, and very much looking forward to the bonus we pay for good reports ( gulp)

Just goes to show what a good school can do. She has been very motivated at this new school, and they really take time with the students. At the previous school maths was always a challenge, and now she is top of the class.

of course this may be more of a reflection on her fellow students, lol. But I hope not.

Here you go david, a picture of my husbands sisters partner getting himself out of a hole

if you want to enter see here:

made me smile

my clock disappearing and returning reminded me of a story in the paper today. Apparently from July this year it is going to be illegal to bring fake watches into Switzerland. This is to protect our Swiss watch industry, and so, even if they are for personal enjoyment, the customs can now take the fake rolex away (well they can after July 1)

so that's alright thenD

strangely my clock has disappeared from my heading, maybe the site is down. I will have to find something else, maybe my cloud, or I might try the cloud as a background, it should work.

as an aside, Richard Branson has a luxury chalet to rent in Verbier from this year. Well his company has. And as my company trip on Feb 29 is probably going to be to Verbier, I emailed today to enquire if it was available.
Turns out it is somewhat over budget. They only rent it out by the week (shame) for exclusive use, sleeps 18, including all meals and booze.
It is booked out for Feb, they offered us a couple of dates in April.
The price............
prepare yourselves now..............

for the week it is from £35000 to £ 45000 depending on date
Optional extras include being helicoptered in from the airport for Fr 2000 or ski lessons at Fr 500 for a day

it is so cool, and I love the way it has so many words in it.

I have just discovered that Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, also has a blog. I have put the link under highly recommended. From there you can also link to Dilbert.com where he posts his daily comic strip

Little things keep me happy

It seems that Switzerland is becoming an Island again. All around us the other countries are introducing a smoking ban in restaurants etc, but here, so far, just 4 cantons have introduced the ban. Smoking is quite popular here, cigarettes are cheap, and don^t have too many scary pictures on them.
Our new President is however saying that he wants to cut the number of smokers significantly. Scary pictures will start appearing this year, and the prices of cigarettes are due to increase from the Fr6 it is now to Fr10 over a period of time. The SVP are protesting this idea apparently, no idea why
could it be because the President this year Pascal Couchepin is a member of the SP?

Out with the old, and in with the new, as the expression goes.
I hope you all had a "Gute Rutsch" as the expression goes over here. It translates as a "good slide" into the New Year.
We were at a friends house celebrating, and got home about 1.15 this morning. The cat woke me at 8.30, which for her was permitting a bit of a lie in. Yesterday I could not get on my emails for some reason, server overload I think, so today, when i managed it, I found 31 emails, of which 29 related to blogging! Wow, i have never had so many. The Good News blog is taking off, we are already at 4 Co-authors, so I am really happy
I hope we can maintain the momentum, but I think we can. All co-authors are regular bloggers, and positive people.

Later today we are off into the mountains again to Grindelwald to see some friends from the UK who are staying the week there. The sun is already shining, so I think today will be better than our trip to Zermatt. The friends we are visiting today trained with me about 25 years ago in Winchester, when we all trained for our accountancy exams. They married each other, and we have all kept in touch. They have 3 children, similar ages to my 2, and 2 of them are coeliac, just like us. Small world really. And it means we should get a nice evening meal tonight, that is totally gluten free,.

Have a good day you all, and look out for the good in life.