Socially, we’ve met up with friends, gone out without the baby and been spoilt for choice for take away and nights out. The Bee’s made a friend and been invited to a baby group, so it’s been great to be back.

Professionally, I couldn’t be happier. Being at the London Business School entrepreneurship conference last week was definitely a highlight. Meeting potential investors, potential partners and potential clients for the business I’m working on launching was great. Being able to set up meetings all week and get stuff done was awesome. Also not being forced to squeeze a months worth of meetings into two days is such a relief.

I’ve been reading Drive by Daniel Pink, and I totally feel driven right now. Pink talks bout the three pillars of motivation being Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. I wouldn’t say that I was totally deprived of these three over my last three-five years, but I was awfully close. It’s nice to have motivation back.

Finally, I’m back to blogging as well, it’s my intention to blog better and more often then ever before. Wish me luck.

Sure there were tough times; I went to work in the public sector when the private sector money was drying out. But I learnt a lot over that period. Mostly, I learnt I was cut out to be a developer.

I went back to school and graduated with a great class, as the current FT rankings will testify. Made some great friends during this time and had some phenomenal experiences.

We sold our flat a couple of months ago, before the sub prime mortgage crisis and now the housing market looks like it’s turning down. Luck was striking again.

Now that I’m at Yahoo! it kind of feels like I’ve come full circle. And with the latest news around the company I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m a little nervous about what the future holds. But whatever it holds I’m looking forward to the ride.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say Shukar/shukran somewhere in this, so there it’s been said.

Last week I was listening to a great podcast from Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series. The particular podcast was on angel investing and had Ron Conway and Mike Maples discussing their experience. Something Mike Maples said really stuck with me, he basically said that we’re lucky enough to have a tremendous education behind us (he was talking about Stanford, but could equally apply to London Business School) so we have no excuse for not doing something your passionate about. I couldn’t agree more.

We had some close friends over for lunch the other day and amongst the great conversation we were discussing our jobs and what we’re doing. Some of us were still trying to figure out what we’re passionate about and some of us know what we’re passionate about and are working in those fields.

Either way, there’s no excuse for not being passionate about what you do. Because if you’re not it’s easy to do something else.

It might seem difficult, but as someone who fell in love with the internet (as sad as it might sound its true) and moved from studying health to doing web development to studying at LBS to working for Yahoo! I have to believe, with passion and commitment, that anything is possible.

A lot of the world doesn’t have that kind of flexibility. Most of the people of the world grow up not being able to make more then a dollar a day. As someone who has access to capital, education, and information I feel blessed and I totally agree with Mick Maples, there is no excuse for not doing what I’m passionate about.

Will I always be this passionate about online? Who knows, I’m not sure. But whatever I decide I’m passionate about I’m lucky enough to know that I have the education and the experience to transition into something else.

It’s kind of odd having my face on the cover now that I’m not at the school anymore.  Especially since my face never made it into any of the brochures while I was there!  Almost gave me a complex.  Oh well, better late then never I guess.

Judging from the look on Yana’s face behind me, whatever I said must have been pretty funny!

So I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Lonely Planet had been acquired by BBC’s worldwide commercial arm. Surprised in a good way in that it’s a great success story for an Alum.  And I hope it means that Tony and Maureen will continue on with their adventures.

It really couldn’t have happened to a nice guy.  Not to mention its a great success story for London Business School!  And we can use a few more of these!

With congregation/graduation/convocation (whatever you want to call it) complete and with the summer ball behind me – great times both – I’m officially done the EMBA programme at London Business School.

It feels like yesterday that I was hanging with Miss N on the steps outside Sainsbury reception, thinking about what a great experience awaited. And it didn’t disappoint.

I went in to the programme hoping to meet great people (solid group of people in the full time and exec programme who I definitely want to stay in touch with, so check), learn a lot (The FT was in Latin before, but now I understand a great deal, from arbitrage to leveraged buy-outs to zero sum games, so check), have some great experiences (hearing Bill Clinton talk about his legacy, consulting in Kiev, meeting great entrepreneurs and hearing about their journeys, so check), ideally come out with a great new job (check) and do it all while convincing the wife that it would all be different when I finished (and so far so good, so check).

It feels very real and very surreal at the same time. But I feel energized and ready to take on the world. But I need a nap to recover from last night first.