Saturday, July 18, 2009

Flying to Morocco

Got up at 5.30 am, kissed my boys goodbye and went to the Venice airport to catch my flight to Rome. Miha took me there and stayed with me until the check-in. Half the time I fought back tears – not used to going places without my boys.
Landed in Rome alright and after some confusion managed to find the right check-in place for Casablanca. Rome airport is funny. At lunchtime people at the ticket counter simply left for lunch for an hour...leaving noone at counter to help out passengers in need of service.
Arrived to Casablanca a few hours later and then from then on to Fez. Could not find iEARN folks at the airport, but kind people there called the emergency number I had in my pocket and some 15 minutes later Latife and another gentelman arrived to pick up me and also a nice group from Yemen.
IMG_8416
The ride in car lasted for some 50 mins, it was nice to see so many people of all ages out in the streets - wearing traditional clotes, modern, all sorts. Chatted with Latife, Mona, Fatima and Nissmh on the way, all sorts of things –about life in Morocco, Yemen, Slovenia, islam, the projects we have been involved in... Before checking in at the University campus, we made a quick stop at the centre – all the shops were alive at 22 pm. Did not buy any food – thought there would be dinner waiting for me but thought wrong and went to bed with a rumbling stomach.
Anyway, the room is nice and has free internet access. Got connected as soon as I got in and found all the sockets and caught my Mih online. J

It's nice to get a new toy every now and then...

... or even just borrow one for awhile, to t least get a taste of it.
I'm fooling around with a HP mini I borrowed from a friend. A neat little thing. It's both - big and small enough to be useful. I want one too!

Monday, July 13, 2009

TMI

Checking my Google reader recently I liked these quotes concerning TMI - too much information:
'I’m proud of saying I don’t know much but I know how to get to know what I don’t know.' CogDog
I like following CogDog's posts a lot. The other quote is by Clay Shirky and was contributed by Dean in the comment area 'It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure'.
I recently read Shirky's 'The power of organizing without organizations' - liked it so much I read it twice. Yet need to watch his TED talk.
I admire people who feel comfortable keeping up with the pace of life around them. Is this something one can learn? I'm still working on figuring out a recipe for me.

Going to Ifrane

I'm getting ready for a little bit more than a week in Morocco's Middle Atlas town called Ifrane. Annual iEARN conference is taking place there from 18th-25th July. I'm thrilled about meeting there Isabel, Mbarek and Nouredine - 3 webhead friends from Brazil and Morocco. I'm all excited about the trip but also not quite happy about staying away from my boys for 9 long days. There will be 4 other Slovene iEARNers in Morocco; Nives, Dušan, Darja and Gregor. I'm presenting the Walls Talking project and where it has taken us so far.