some guy in lebanon

My God, it’s been ages, hasn’t it? I am so sorry for not keeping up with my blog, but I’ve been SO busy over the past two months. So many people who are reading this are not at all uptodate on what’s been going with me, and I don’t know where to start, but I’ll try to just give a brief overview.

In the past two months I’ve been so blessed to have my name and expertise grown noticed by many people here in Lebanon. In particular, through some business associates, I now have a budding career in strategic communications consulting in Lebanon, and I find myself one of only a few people who are offering those types of services here. What does that mean? In Lebanon, unlike say, in America, there are very few people who help companies:

• Formulate their messaging and content
• Audit the effectiveness of their communication channels, both internal and external
• Determine the engineering and architecture of their data, both internal and external
• Build attractive, professional, and monetized websites
• And lots of other similar things

This important service is usually best left to a consultant, and because there’s been such considerable brain-drain in Lebanon over the past twenty years, there are few people here who are qualified and able to use these services, even as there are so many people and companies who need them.

I have been commissioned for these services for a Bank here (can’t say which), and will hopefully attract a portfolio of other similar institutions in the coming weeks and months.

I cannot stress how wonderful and BLESSED I feel to be doing work that I love, find fulfilling, and find interesting, and be paid handsomely for it. I also cannot thank enough those people who have made the introductions, and negotiated the deals, so that I can do this work effectively.

On that note, it appears I will be soon leaving the Daily Star for offices of my own here in Beirut, and will be able to really grow my work.

More to come on this in the future, but let’s just say I couldn’t be happier with my current and potential-future professional situation. I have also completed work on two enormous web projects at the Daily Star, one for Tourism and one for Nightlife, both of which I will try to hold some control of after I leave the newspaper.

As for today – well it was a beautiful day in Beirut, with weather similar to mid-spring in Florida, or mid-summer in Maine, the weather I love so much. A friend of mine and I went to an Organic Food market and then had lunch nearby, and I’ve spent the evening working (gasp?! on a Saturday night? And I turned down an invite to a big gala to do so? I must REALLY be loving my work!), and I just went and bought a huge haul of American candy.

Pictures of said Organic Fair and candy are below. Also there are pictures from a French Steak Restaurant housed in a Crusader Castle up the coast.

So! Things are going so very very well, although as I’ve said before, the ground moves very quickly beneath one’s feet in Beirut. There are elections coming up which could get a little ugly, and I’ve heard it from all sorts of people that this is a big “IF” – so we’ll see what happens there.

I will try to keep up with the blogging better in the future. My love and prayers to all from the Middle East!

The Dao that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not true.
The Dao manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
-Dao De Jing