5-Bullet Grateful Friday (November 12–18, 2016)

1. Post 01 (October 29 — November 04, 2016): here
2. Post 02 (November 05–11, 2016): here

Here is the weekly installment of 5-Bullet Grateful Friday, my most favorite channel to reflect on the last seven calendar days and feel love for all the amazing things that happened to me.

1. I took Tuesday off work in order to spend more time with my son Timofei. I brought him to school in the morning (which happens way too seldom for my liking). And then later on in the morning I came in to see him take part in a science show that was on in his primary school. My wife Tania and I were laughing at the experiment that he was presenting to the audience: how to create a static electricity by rubbing a balloon over his hair and then using generated electricity to pick up a piece of paper from the table. He rubbed that balloon on his head so feverishly every time someone came over to his table. :) For being my little curious scientist and giving us a hearty laugh I am so grateful to you, my son Timofei!
2. Google has this tool called “My Activity” available for everyone. Nico on our team was trying to remember the name of a song that he listened to over a month ago when he was out shopping. But a quick search within the history on “My Activity” produced the answer. I was impressed! But it was also quite funny to see how the rest of the team reacted: some people were very curious and started testing to see how well the product actually worked in various scenarios, while others wanted to ensure that they would use “Delete activity by topic or product” function for some of the days. :) I love this tool, and for your amazing skills I am so grateful to you, Google Engineers!
3. At the week-end I was volunteering at a start-up event, and had a chance to spend a day hanging out with a truly amazing researcher of behavioral economics Dan Ariely! The way he makes his presentations is both very insightful, and superbly entertaining! :) And being such a great sport and after spending a few days previously in Kilkenny, Dan was wearing Kilkenny GAA jersey. And the best thing about that jersey was that for a number on the jersey’s back Dan had the Greek letter “π”. Being a mathematician he couldn’t contain his delight at having this symbol on his jersey and kept twisting around to show it to us. :) For your amazing talks and your books (all of which I have now purchased), I am so grateful to you, Dan Ariely!
4. We have a new starter on our team, the guy called Greg. Greg is originally from the US (Georgia & Florida) but he spent the last year in the UK completing his MSc at Oxford University. Joining Google (and our org specifically) can be quite an intimidating task for anyone. I have been superbly impressed with Greg’s relaxed and confident mood, good engagement, drive, passion, and people-focused approach to things since he joint the team. As a manager of our team, for your conduct and seamless integration into the team so far I am very grateful to you, Greg!
5. I am falling in love with skipping! :) Timofei and I have been skipping on a daily basis for a week, and we can’t get enough of it. We skip and we smile. :) In fact, I am now trying to spread this idea at work and infect my management peers with it. :) So please stay tuned for that. For the improvements in agility and an increase in smiles I am very grateful to you, my skipping rope!

Thank you for reading “5-Bullet Grateful Friday” weekly posts. You are awesome!

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