Coping with the COP/Surfing

What a week it has been. If you can't even remember to get in touch with your parents to tell them you've arrived safely, you know you're busy. But it's not being in busy in the sense that I would want it. I think in Montreal two years ago I had the problem of climate fatigue, and I think it's getting back. There's too much interesting stuff, which means that you have to make choices continuously, and you end up with not really doing what you wanted to do. And that gets a little frustrating at times. I did at one point make a priority list of things to do here: 1) prepare my presentation; 2) get in touch again with old familiar faces; 3) attend side-events; 4) attend negotiations. I didn't really get to point 4 in this list, but also the other parts have been messed up a bit by a food poisoning over the last two days. I'm slowly recovering by now, but I missed out on the nice NGO party on Saturday, and wasn't able to give my first presentation yesterday.

But let me also emphasise some of the nice things of last week. I met up with Arno and co. at Legian, where we had a good time for a few days, including my first attempts at surfing (see photographic evidence). We even surfed a bit while a thunderstorm was raging! Also adventurous: there was a small (?) earthquake on Friday when I was at the COP. I think the Earth Negotiations Bulletin indicated it best what the feelings were about this event: "One thing delegates did not seem to be discussing was the earthquake in Bali that occurred on Friday evening during the COP President’s reception event. “Was there an earthquake?” asked one delegate." :)