it's been a long time, now I'm coming back home (Wait)

The last week has seen me in the bosom of my family, dear reader, although the time has flown by so quickly, I really do wonder where it's gone. Just before I left Kochi and in the time just after I arrived in Sydney, I had had communications with the good folks I can now call my erstwhile employers and we agreed that we could call my assignment with KiBS successfully completed.

I had been involved with the School for six months - four of them in India as you have been reading - and found it a rich learning experience, but I don't know working on one continent while my family is living on another very well. Having been back in Sydney briefly in early December, and notwithstanding the experiences of St Vinnies and so on, I realised how much I had missed Kerry, Fiona, and yes, even Luke! Returning to Kochi via Delhi reinforced what the next six months would be like and I decided that, in the best interests of everyone, it was time to say au revoir to India for the time being.

That being said, I think I can look back over the last six months with some pride. The idea of "successfully completing my assignment in India" is borne out by my having established and gained FIBAA (Austrian government) accreditation for the School's MBA program (the program will be taught in conjunction with the Management Centre Innsbruck, of the University of Applied Sciences in Innsbruck); my having mapped out the teaching program for the inaugural intake of students in September, 2008; my having developed and produced the School's 2008 prospectus; and my having had key inputs into the design of the KiBS teaching facilities.

I look forward to fresh, new challenges in 2008. In the meantime, this week is a time for some reflection (and a juxtaposing of some of the photos that I've taken over my time in Kochi and surrounds to look at where we were and where we got to across professional and domestic fronts. It's also a time for me to deal with an unwanted addition to my Christmas chores.

Unfortunately, Santa brought me one thing extra that I hadn’t anticipated – a “fried” hard disk, that wasn’t fully backed up. I’m in the embarrassing situation of having to confess to my friends, colleagues and wider professional network that I’ve lost all my emails for the past 5 months (just as well I keep my contacts backed up on a different system).

In the circumstances, I've had to ask them if they can check whether we have any outstanding email correspondence, and they’re expecting an answer from me on a particular matter. I find myself having to work through any outstanding matters methodically but at some pace in order to clear the decks for 2008.

Please don’t feel embarrassed about having a chuckle at my expense, dear reader – I’ve already done that (if somewhat hysterically). Anyway, I suppose it does allow me to enter 2008 with something of a clean slate.