Getting ready to live off of fish and chips!

My hotel, literally on the seafront across the street (I should have taken a picture of the seafront, oops!)

Well, I'm here and I am soooo jetlagged and exhausted. I think being 5 hours off here is much worse than being 12 hours off in Taiwan!

Rewinding a little bit, my goodbye lunch and last (sort of) day at Ricardo was good. What threw me off is that I sent out a goodbye email to say goodbye (obviously), and a lot of people seemed to take it as a "say goodbye and send me all the work you need done right away". Grrr.

Everything is going well so far... the flight, the ride from the airport to the hotel, the food (cross your fingers for me!), the people, the weather... I've been too non-functional to actually do or see anything around here. I took a long walk yesterday to find a place to eat but I was just trying to stay out of my room and awake.

The only thing that is kind of annoying me is that the toilet in my hotel room keeps doing crazy things. I think the water pressure just isn't enough for the toilet to actually flush, so I have to use a small cup to try to fill it up with enough water before it will flush. How does a toilet work? I need to figure this out so I can figure out how to get it to properly flush. I'm too settled in the room to ask for a room change, and something tells me I may run into the same problem in a different room anyway.

Buuut I'm going out to lunch with the Harrington McDermott group today (yay) and bowling with the IT group tonight!

More to come, I'm supposed to be working right now but my computer is super slow.

My farewell email to Ricardo friends

The time has finally come for me to leave Ricardo and finally focus on finishing my degree as a student! It’s hard for me to write this because Ricardo has become a big part of my life and Ricardo people have become like family to me in the time that I have been here. Thank you for your support, life lessons, friendships, mentorships, and your day-to-day kindness. I have had an amazing experience working with all of you and I wish you the best for the future! Keep in touch!

Start counting down, not too much longer now!

This is where I'll be staying for 2.5 weeks!

This will be my "backwards graduation" party

An important part of the transition is thanking the important people who have gotten me to this point. So this is the next big email that went out, but this time, to a very small number of people:

As you know, my last day at Ricardo is Friday, August 15th since I have made a big decision to transfer to Grand Valley State University as full time student until I complete my degree. I have also been able to (finally) solidify the details to visit the marketing team in the UK from July 27th through August 13th so I will be out of town for a majority of the time before I leave. I would like to celebrate my “backwards graduation” with you, who have been some of the most important people to me in the last few years (throughout the time I have been at Ricardo and throughout the first few years of my college career). I hope you know that I truly appreciate the friendships and mentors you have become to me! I would be honored if you (and your significant other if he/she can make it) could meet me for dinner at:

Buca Di Beppo
On (date and time)

Thank you cards are already written and ready to go :)

I tried not to sound too bitter or too excited

I got my travel in and I guess the trip is back on again! I'm not going to say who because I'm not in the clear yet (I can't say terrible things incase someone finds this before I leave) but, someone said to me over the phone the other day "the next time you call me, I want you to tell me that after all they put you through, you decided you are going to England on someone else's dime and you're going to get drunk every night and have a ball". I don't want to make the trip quite that useless (although I'm looking forward to drinking legally), but I'm still bitter about the series of events that ranged over half a year to make this work out! Here's the first notice I gave. I tried not to sound too much like I was saying "screw you" or too much like I was saying "screw you, I'm going to go party"

All,

I wanted to make you immediately aware that it has been finally decided I will be going to the UK from Sunday, July 27^th returning Friday, August 8^th. I will be here at DTC the week of Monday, August 11^th with my last day at Ricardo being Friday, August 15^th.

More to come tomorrow about what I’ve decided I can manage to complete before I leave. I am trying to balance and finalize the list between major projects for both departments before I officially send it out.

Regards,
Tammy