#29
WORK OVERSEAS
Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
-Cesare Pavese
I think it is about time I spread my wings a little bit, try living and working overseas. I am partial to Italy, maybe even New Zealand or Australia?
Explore. Dream. Discover.
Find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life.
-LKF
All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveller learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.
-Paul Fussell
Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.
-Frank Herbert
Arriving at each new city, the traveller finds again a past of his that he did now know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.
-Italo Calvino
-Italo Calvino
What you've done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do - especially in other people’s minds. When you’re travelling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
-William Least Heat Moon
So the plan is to go and be a little adventurous bird...
#30
BE FRIENDLIER WITH TELEPHONE SALES PERSONNEL
Oh, this is hard. I always start off really polite, I even allow them to get at least half way with their sales pitch, before I listen intently for the sound that would signal the quick intake of a breath, then I, still very politely say, "Thank you very much, but I am not interested." See, it all went so well up to here...I might have to repeat my line one more time, but as soon as the personal questions or the inevitable, "But why are you not interested?" start off, things take a turn for the worse, very quickly. I have literally said, "I am going to put the phone down now, ok, bye", and then I do exactly that...*hangs head in shame*...
Oh, this is hard. I always start off really polite, I even allow them to get at least half way with their sales pitch, before I listen intently for the sound that would signal the quick intake of a breath, then I, still very politely say, "Thank you very much, but I am not interested." See, it all went so well up to here...I might have to repeat my line one more time, but as soon as the personal questions or the inevitable, "But why are you not interested?" start off, things take a turn for the worse, very quickly. I have literally said, "I am going to put the phone down now, ok, bye", and then I do exactly that...*hangs head in shame*...
I do try and make up for this by being extremely polite and friendly with all other service personnel I come across on a daily basis, but those damn telephone sales people just make it so damn hard to be friendly...
But I'm working on it, I might just let one get through the whole sales pitch one of these days...
#31
SEE A PANDA
So I have this tiny Panda obsession...not by chance. So much so, that I even have a designated Panda Caretaker, a good friend of mine, Robert P.
So I have this tiny Panda obsession...not by chance. So much so, that I even have a designated Panda Caretaker, a good friend of mine, Robert P.
How did this all come about? Well, seeing as you asked...
I was in the Pick and Pay, not a good thing on a Saturday morning at the end of the month. The lines were endless, I just had one basket, so I was chatting to Robert, hereafter always to be referred to as PC (Panda Caretaker), and the conversation just got ridiculous...what is to follow is the real life account of my Saturday morning conversation in the Pick and Pay while trying to pay for one basket of groceries :).
(Bear...haha, BEAR, in mind that Robert had been out partying the night before...it explains a lot...)PC: Grrr, why u awake so early...? Lazy day for me today. Haha!
Me: Always awake early. Enjoy your lazy day! I'm in the Q at PandP, still like 20 people before me, insane! How's the head?
PC: Pandap? What that?
Me: Pick and Pay, clearly still drunk!
PC: P uhh why u shopping for pandas?? R u in China?
Me: Who the hell is shopping for pandas?? U stoned as well as drunk? STILL not at the front of the Q. Shite...! At least u give me something to do!
PC: Whoa Panda aggression?
Me: Panda's super irritated! This Q is insane, one basket of stuff, taking an hour to purchase, not cool!
PC: Lol, u do know it's the month end and everyone wants 2 buy pandas?
Me: Apparently! Pandas are very much in demand it seems, yayness, second in Q! Gotta go!
PC: Pandap? What that?
Me: Pick and Pay, clearly still drunk!
PC: P uhh why u shopping for pandas?? R u in China?
Me: Who the hell is shopping for pandas?? U stoned as well as drunk? STILL not at the front of the Q. Shite...! At least u give me something to do!
PC: Whoa Panda aggression?
Me: Panda's super irritated! This Q is insane, one basket of stuff, taking an hour to purchase, not cool!
PC: Lol, u do know it's the month end and everyone wants 2 buy pandas?
Me: Apparently! Pandas are very much in demand it seems, yayness, second in Q! Gotta go!
And that, my friends, is where all things Panda related started. Now you know. So I need to go to China, if only to see a Panda...
#32
HAVE REALLY LONG HAIR
Not as easy as you might imagine. This seems to be somewhat of a struggle for me. I recently cut my hair, the shortest it has been in about 10 years...uhm, not such a good look for me. Too short to be long, but too long to be a short hairstyle. And it seems as if my hair refuses to grow past a certain length...then I get bored and irritated, cut it and then I'm right back where I started...*frustrated sigh*...
Not as easy as you might imagine. This seems to be somewhat of a struggle for me. I recently cut my hair, the shortest it has been in about 10 years...uhm, not such a good look for me. Too short to be long, but too long to be a short hairstyle. And it seems as if my hair refuses to grow past a certain length...then I get bored and irritated, cut it and then I'm right back where I started...*frustrated sigh*...
#33
HAVE A FANCY DINNER PARTY WITH FRIENDS AND A
HOME COOKED FIVE COURSE MEAL
HOME COOKED FIVE COURSE MEAL
The 'fancy' and the 'party' part...check. The home cooked meal part..., not so much :). I can't imagine an evening that is better spent than with good friends, good food (fingers crossed) around a huge dining room table.
Imagine a beautiful, lavishly decorated dining room table, I'm thinking lots of lights, flowers, candles, green and white...the table set for eight very special guests...
A dinner invitation, once accepted, is a sacred obligation. If you die before the dinner takes place, your executor must attend.
-Ward McAllister
-Ward McAllister
There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves.
-Thomas Wolfe
The cooking activities for the evening might take a little more careful planning...ok, who am I kidding...a whole lot more planning :).
Your invitations are on their way...
#34
GO ON A LUXURY TRAIN RIDE
Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay and love you, but I have to go;
this is my station.
-Lisa St. Aubin De Teran
I never travel without my diary. One should always have
something sensational to read on the train.
-Oscar Wilde
Any train would probably do...but...imagine this...
Board the train, make my way along the narrow corridor to my overnight compartment, use my suitcase to bump into a couple of people along the way, politely say, "I'm so sorry", stare out of the window, panic a little when we go through a tunnel and it’s pitch black for a while, go and have drinks and dinner in the dining carriage and fall asleep to the clickety-clack of the train on the tracks...
how obvious is it that I have given this some thought?
I missed the first train, stood out in the rain, all day. But little did I know, when I caught the next train. There you were to sweep me away.
-Bruno Mars
Keep you posted.
Rachel
xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment