Though a straight line appears to be the shortest distance between 2 points, life has a way of confounding geography. Often it is the dalliances and the detours that define us. There are no maps to guide our most important searches; we must rely on hope, chance, intuition and a willingness to be surprised.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Winter in Sydney

WW takes some time-out from the battlefield to attend to local morale...

It’s been more than a month. I’ve tried a few times but…

…I’ve had mixed feelings about this website since I stopped travelling. I’ve been reluctant to talk about the day-to-day stuff. It could get rather tedious (whadda ya mean ‘could’ I hear you say?). It’s much easier to make this lively and interesting when I’m talking about foreign travel, because the focus is on… exotic places and weird customs and freaky things happening. And I’m not talking so much about me…

But I do want to keep the blog going. It's good to blog. It's something for me to look back on if nothing else.

But maybe... maybe I can keep things interesting by not talking about me. Instead of talking about me, I could talk about ‘we’ – what ‘we’ at Opportunity have been doing, what ‘we’ as in me and friends have been doing, maybe even talk about ‘we’ as in me and my romantic interests. Nah, actually I might leave that for another day... tmi…

Because ‘we’ is what life should be all about (aaaahhhh!). Ahem, ok… definitely going to get on with it now, before this becomes nothing other than semantics and naval-gazing.


[and another thing - it's hard to get motivated to update this blog when blogger works so freakin poorly. If anyone can explain why all the paragraphs are stuck to gether and why I ahve to continually fiddle with these updates to get them looking remotely neat, please do tell. Ok, Counted to ten... bitch over... High horse put back in the stable... ]

Opportunity

Opportunity International is a big part of my life at the moment. We (hey this is easy!) are going through a big big year in 2009. Not an easy year. We are working through the biggest global recession in 60 years – it affects our donors, it affects our partners (in India, the Philippines and Indonesia), it affects our clients. We are working harder than ever to make sure we can keep the money flowing. We are working better as a (smaller) team. We are loving it actually – there’s always a buzz in the office. Uncertainty is never very nice, but there’s a real satisfaction in doing as much as you can, working together. Not that it’s all sweetness and light – we drive each other mad like any other office full of wilful people.

We are relying more on the work of our ambassadors – our highly involved volunteers, who are running projects for us, not just to raise funds, but to raise awareness. Most of all we want to make friends this year.

Last weekend we had an event for ambassadors in Sydney. We had a few presentations on our work, including a presentation from me on the effect of the global economic crisis. It seemed to go very well. We are investing effort now for the long run…

Job satisfaction is often elusive. But if you can see an outcome (a product, a service, a change in the way things are done) making a positive change in peoples’ lives (whatever field you work in), and if you can know that you have made an important contribution to that outcome, then I think you’re there. I think we’re getting there.

Willie Wallace finds that freedom means different things to different people...

Party

Photos in this update are from last weekend’s (that was one busy weekend) fancy dress party. We had an awesome time, with great outfits (Jessica Rabbit, Mr T, Braveheart (yours truly), ballerinas and playboy bunnies). At the end of the night (ok, the next morning) it dawned on me that my wig was missing. Returning to the scene of the battle to ask for your wig back is something I’ll bet William Wallace never had to do. Mind you, even the bar staff had been trying it on, so it’s not surprising it went walk about…

It’s been great to reconnect with friends in Sydney. We’ve had bbqs, birthday parties (1yo, 2yo, 30yo), festivals (Brian Eno festival, Sydney movie festival) and generally done much in defiance of the steadily worsening weather.

Next week sees the shortest day. The temperature is never too low (it’s never in single figures), but it feels somehow freezing at times. Wearing a jumper to work has become a daily necessity. Going out for a coffee seems a justified defence ‘against the cold’. How did I ever survive in Scotland???!!!

Iceman!!! Bogie at your 6, bogie at your... ahhh, whatever, let's just pose with Betty Boop.

Fluff

Lots of things have tickled me in the last month. For a week I was a geeky follower of the shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. There wasn’t a battery replacement, a module installation, a stubbornly resisting screw that I didn’t read about three or four times. That’s not drama?? Are you kidding me??

I’ve been to Brisbane for the first time. Looks nice. Very legoland-ish around the river. I was there just for one day, nothing too exciting. Would love to go back.

I’ve been back at the physio. Being ancient, I break very easily these days. This time it’s the other shoulder. I now have lots more funny little exercises (steady!) to do over the next 6 weeks. At least I can still swim this time, though not in the ocean… and yeah I’m not missing that too much at this time of year.

I could go on, but I'll shut up at that. More fluff and 'we' soon.

And not an NRL player in site...