Somewhere to sit... somewhere to put clothes...

Furniture. Something that you cannot live without because your living space would be so empty! Or untidy... and your bum would hurt from sitting on the floor =P

So we got new furniture. I shall showcase them for you here now. The first piece was my new desk, valued at NZD $20 from the Salvation Army - get furniture for the flat and help out a good organisation. I like that ;) Now I can study at home instead of in the office until really late. Ryan got one too but I won't take photos of his room and put them up online, he would kill me!

My desk is the white one right there. And the wardrobe on the right is a gift from one of our National Board of Advisors who just bought a whole house full of new furniture and offered this to us. It is solid mahogany and will go well in one of the rooms without a wardrobe or even better, somewhere in the hallway as Ozge suggested so we can have a look at ourselves before leaving the house. It is currently resided in front of the heater... or maybe it's been moved.

For the past week I have been working on a research report commissioned by a direct selling company. I've been at my brother's computer desk with my laptop, tapping into his superfast broadband connection. Hehe, and I've had two computers at my disposal. It feels really nice to be doing work at one computer and then turning my chair slightly to check my personal emails or AIESEC emails on the other...gives me breaks, keeps me relaxed.

It makes you think just how important your living environment can be to your sense of well-being. Even just keeping your bedroom or your lounge clean can make you happier, aye?

Who Moved My Cheese?

There were times in my life when I stopped moving and decided that I wanted to go back to the way it used to be. Well, who am I kidding? I am still doing that sometimes.

I remember hearing a story from Trev about managing change at the New Zealand Leadership Development Seminar in September. In that context, we were supposed to 'amaze the maze' by tackling the unsuspected events that will occur during the course of a conference and changing with them, not being afraid to make the necessary changes to the plan.

The other day in the book shop, waiting for Ozge to buy something, I happened upon the book he was referring to, "Who Moved My Cheese?", in the management section. I flicked through it there because it was a very short book and discovered another context in which it could be applied. "Cheese", instead of being a conference or a new strategy, are the things that we want in life, the things that make us feel happy and fulfilled. In the maze of life, when our Cheese has been moved, or slowly eaten away, we need to search out for new cheese straight away.

The most important lesson to learn, in this context, is that we must not dwell on what has been and gone. We must not sit and wait for our Cheese to magically reappear or even wish ourselves to be eating the same Cheese ever again.

In the last few months, that was what I was hoping for. For a return to my old Cheese. My old life - friends, ways I spent my time, my lifestyle. Now, I have come to a new realisation - something others had already figured out but only just clicked in my head. I will never get that Cheese back again so I might as well put on my running shoes and go find some new and different Cheese!

It doesn't mean I won't savour the taste of my old Cheese forever; it means I will not be someone sitting around waiting for something great to happen in my life. The other lesson is that we should not be so comfortable with our current situation that we forget the world is changing around us.

If you get my drift, great! If you don't, you can try flicking through the book.

Tagged Unsuspectingly

Tagged by: Amit Desai

Ten years ago
- I was 12
- I played in our school’s netball team
- I listened to my first CDs and read books all afternoon
- Mariah Carey was the best!

Five years ago
- I was 17
- I took Japanese, Economics, English, Calculus and Accounting
- We got to wear plain clothes to high school for the whole year
- We had one free period at school where we could study or go out of school
- Our high school was in the central city so we always went shopping after school

The last one year
- I finished my LCP term
- I was transitioned to the NZ MC and slept in the same bed as Vaishali for a month
- I moved away from home for the first time and learnt how to live with people other than my family
- I got a brand new family who care about each other and constantly learn from each other
- I started to watch a lot of movies because we have pay tv with a movie channel; I ponder why we still get movies out from the video store...
- We discovered Playstation party games – Buzz and SingStar
- Desperate Housewives became a flat (house) tradition
- I learnt a lot of things about myself and others... I grew up even more

Yesterday
- Woke up at 7:30am, got ready to go to work
- Didn’t end up going to work so went to the AIESEC office to do some work there
- Talked to my high school friend for a while before she went back to Taiwan for holidays
- Finished off emails and went home for lunch
- Flew back to Hamilton
- Went grocery shopping for mum and dad
- Stayed up until 3:30am on the computer for the first time in a month! Got Tagged by Amit.

Five Yummy things
- Buckets of strawberries in the summer
- Avacado
- Chocolate cake with tea / hot chocolate / coffee
- Ginger flavoured anything
- Green tea ice cream

Five songs I know by heart
- The Reason – Hoobastank
- Sway – Bic Runga
- Born to Try – Delta Goodrem
- Iris – Goo Goo Dolls
- New Zealand national anthem Maori version

Five things I’d do if I had the money
- Travel to every country in the world
- Visit all my friends who live around the world and stay with all of them for at least a week to catch up!
- Buy a new mobile phone...Buy a new portable laptop!
- Donate lots and lots of it to projects helping people become independent in developing countries
- Quit my jobs and live a nomadic lifestyle

Five places I escape to:
- The park near my house in Hamilton
- My bedroom
- Any library
- Cyberspace
- The City centre

Five TV shows:
- Desperate Housewives
- ER
- Scrubs
- Friends
- The Amazing Race

Five things I enjoy doing
- Learning Chinese writing
- Cooking and baking
- Talking on the phone
- Listening to music
- Eating =P

My favourite toys
- My digital camera
- My laptop
- My Skype headset

Someone who hasn't posted since May!
Gary

My home town is Hamilton

It's an odd feeling when you tell the driver taking you to the airport that you're going home to Hamilton. I could hear the disappointment in his voice. He expected it to be some far and exotic place. Not to say that Hamilton -isn't- exotic. Well, actually it isn't!

Either way, I am home with my family and it's really nice. I'm glad I came back early because it gives us time to be together and share in each other's strength; we remember other members of the family from all over the world... and sort of reminisce. I miss our conversations at the table - two languages at once.

Hamilton is hot and the air is a little heavy. So different to Wellington's windy warmth. Hamilton's warmth is still and lazy; it makes you want to stay put rather than move. In Wellington the wind blows you into action.

Speechless

My grandma just passed away. She travelled to China a week ago after my grandfather passed in November. She needed to be there in person for matters concerning his will and while she was there she had heart problems and died in hospital.

I don't know how I feel right now. Part of me wanted to cry when I heard the news at work today, there were a few people in the room. That was the same reaction when I found out about my grandfather - I felt pain in my throat when I told Vaishali, who stood across from me in the kitchen.

But for some reason, I don't really feel sad because I cried when she had a stroke five years ago and since then... I already missed her. I used to dream every night that she would be able to walk and talk again.

A part of me is happy that she passed away in her homeland and not far away here in New Zealand where no one can visit her except my parents, my brother and me. At least she is back where she feels the most comfortable, home, where she spent all her youthful years. And she's back with my grandfather too. So I won't cry, I will be strong for them and for my family.

I will be going back to Hamilton early (Monday) to be with my mum and brother. My mum is finding it hard to work in the shop alone. My dad is still in China and will probably stay longer to organise my grandma's funeral.

When he called my mum to tell her, he was speechless.

Hey just discovered that Amit is a Harry Potter fan too!

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

Your in-depth results are:

Ravenclaw - 14
Hufflepuff - 13
Gryffindor - 10
Slytherin - 7

You should try it!

Miss you much...

Wow... people keep disappearing from the house! They're like pegs.

First New Zealand Leadership Team meeting brought 5 extra people into the house - although Yat belongs here anyway =P then one by one they all left!

The Ps left, then Yat and Ryan left... then Nikita.

I miss Nikita...she stayed the longest, cooked us brownies (the cookie kind), pasta and potato wedges. She even shared her Kapiti Brie cheese and crackers with us :) awww, the office was so empty the day after she left - I actually had someone in there with me for once!

And just yesterday morning Vaishali left too!! The house feels so empty. I just keep expecting people to come home :(

So it's just Ozge and me... to stop us from feeling depressed, we're going out this Saturday! Oh yeah I got a work Xmas party - should go to that first, then go out :):):)

Still though. Miss you.

Where do all the pegs go?

Today, Simon mentioned we needed to buy more pegs. I asked why. He said because they tend to disappear like socks in the washing machine.

Out of all the housework that I do, the one thing I dislike the most has always been my laundry. I don't know why. It's quite easy to do, you just load it all in and press the button. When it's done you take it out. But I always forget to hang it - hanging laundry for me is like doing the dishes for Simon (my flatmate), it might overlap a day. And then the clothes has that damp smell - ew. So I have to wash them again!! >.<

In Wellington, laundry has an added difficulty - the weather. On a typical week, you may have two (2) days of rain, two (2) days of wind and odd days of rain and wind with some days being windier than others. In these conditions, laundry must be timed precisely. And if you're out of synch or not at home on those windows of opportunity when the southerly is good and the rain clouds are away on a two (2) day sabbatical, well - Bad luck! You better have a huge supply of underwear.

On those windier than thou days, the clothes blows around and around the line wrapping two clothes lines together until, really, pegs are not needed. And the pegs, they fly away with the clothes that are not so lucky to be tangled up... so I discovered where the pegs went. Hmm what we need are some Hurricane Grip ones