At the end of today I feel a little tiny bit proud of myself.
I managed yoga this morning (with the lovely Adriene as always) which set me off all nice and activated, brewed some yummy Colombian coffee that the lovely in-house German got from the Valletta spice shop in St John Street, packed some home-made (from a packet but I still get points here) quinoa bread and hummus in my lovely, relatively new backpack that has become my constant companion. With the morning meeting at the Palace Armoury postponed I started work in Floriana, breathing my way through the walk there and trying to stay focused on my breath rather than the fact that I need to hand in a project plan in less than a week and the project is hanging on sketchy anchors.
Venice Biennale work is starting to become pretty full-on. The catalogue is coming together, conversations are being had over packing and shipping things, loan agreements are being finalised, lists prepared for the items to be exhibited, those printed and a million other things happening all at once. I’m so loving getting to know the collection better, connecting the dots between items, filling in the background around the general narrative of it all. It’s intriguing, fun and generally a little bit weird. Completely up my street. At the same time I’m really also seeing the complexity of such a project. People to be managed along with the issues that crop up around working together, objects need to be sourced from a million-and-one places, impossible-to-keep-to budgets have to be kept-to, responsibility taken for things that are as yet somewhat undefined and so many other hurdles to navigate daily. Curating something like this is really not a task for the faint-hearted and I really admire the way Bettina and Raphael are handling this together.
In keeping with my productive day I managed a quick lunch in the sun thanks to the Lebanese place in Floriana (Olive Tree I think) where I got a yummy, crunchy salad to go with my hummus and bread. Afternoon was spent doing my last few shifts being a marketing manager at Corinthia whilst managing slight onset of panic due to the fact that from tomorrow I start handing over to the new (permanent) marketing manager and thus need to close off the many projects currently in my hands. Some more focused breathing is in order.
Quick walk to Valletta and a meeting with my possible project partner for the project that needs handing in in a few days. Project proposal is thankfully going ahead and we’re both completely on board with making this the best it can be since it has the potential of releasing some very crucial funds for an organisation we both believe in. The rest of the night was spent formalising the said project plan after a few hours of procrastination that seem to occupy the gap between deciding to start a project plan, and getting over my fear of creating something mediocre, to actually start writing. In the end I managed a loose plan that will hopefully create a structure for everyone to polish and flesh out.
So yes, I’m a tad proud of myself today.
