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Wow what a year

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This part “Christmas Message”, part Summary of the year and part thank you to all the fantastic wonderful people I have met and hung out with this year.

But, wow, what an up and down year this has been… I feel in some ways that this Christmas is a deja vu of last Christmas (ie being unemployed), but there has been so much that has happened this year that things are quite different this Christmas. So here’s a bit of a rundown of the year.

Job(s)

Well, I’ve had 2 jobs this year – a Consultant at Hands-on Systems, which I loved, but left after 3 months as I was headhunted by ProjectCentre for my perfect job, combining my IT and Construction Skills. That job lasted just over 3 months, and I loved it, and thought I was doing a great job and getting the product ready for release and then I was “retrenched” – I won’t go on about it, but I’m still very angry and upset about that one.

So back to the horrible world of job hunting and recruiters – I can’t say how much I hate job hunting! I have such specialised skills that recruiters won’t even look at my resume because it just does not “tick all the boxes”. I have found some great recruiters that really do their job well, but some of them are so bad I just have to hang up. The problem is that my Ideal job that is combining IT and Construction just does not exist as construction companies don’t think that they need to spend money on IT. However, if I can get in there and start working, they see how valuable my contribution is. For me the biggest hurdle is getting to the interview stage. I tend to do much better once I’m in front of a potential employer.

With the impact of the GFC, I’m concentrating my job hunting efforts in IT rather than Construction as I think that IT may weather the financial storm better, but I won’t rule out construction – I won’t rule out any job doing anything as long as it pays the mortgage.

I have been doing some great work on contract for the few months I’ve been out of work, and I’ve enjoyed doing it, but I can not earn enough to live… right now I’m just earning enough to keep a few bills paid and living very frugally. Also, I hate contracting. I hate not knowing where the next few hours work is coming from. I hate working alone (although I do have a small team for my current work which is good). So I do really need to find a full time job that pays well, so I can feel settled and secure once again.

In January I have some more contracting opportunities and I will be back to the job hunting again, and will try some other tactics rather than dealing with recruiters too much. So here’s hoping that 2009 will be the year I get a good job where I earn enough, I am valued as an employee and I love going to work. And I wish that for everyone else too!

Wellbeing

Another up and down year this year… I’ve had a persistent nagging bronchial infection for a lot of the year which has not been great and it curtailed playing Underwater Hockey for much of the year. Luckily there was a good stint of a few months mid year where I felt great and well, and that coincided with my Trip… so that worked well.

I’ve still been doing Feldenkrais all year, have been doing it now for at least 15 years and still get so much out of it. It’s rare for me to miss a Saturday class and I love going and love catching up with all the people in the class for coffee after.

I’ve also been doing my Nordic walking most weeks. We now have only a very small group of regular walkers and it’s difficult to keep the group running but I enjoy it so much I will keep it going.

But overall, this year has been the worst health I’ve had for many years and I really hope 2009 will be much much better.

Travel

Well this is the year that I finally did it… finally got to London, Europe and Dubai. I now feel like a real member of the human race having at least seen London and Paris, and Dubai was amazing.

Despite the GFC and the dollar crashing a few weeks before I left, I had a great time and loved the whole trip. I won’t go into a lot of detail here as I’ve written a few blog posts about it already and you can a selection of my photos on Flickr.

The highlights of my trip were Bilbao, the Be2Camp in London, Wales with Emily, Paris and Dubai.

I would love to travel again now… so hopefully an opportunity will arise some time in 2009!

Social

This is the aspect of my life that has been the best year ever! I have met such wonderful new friends this year and have been to so many great events that it has just been so great. This is mainly due to Twitter and the Sydney Tech Community which is thriving. Some of the excellent events this year have been

  • New Years Eve (thanks @ceibner)
  • Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum (thanks to @trib for the ticket)
  • Earth Hour Girls night out
  • Regular STUB events (thanks @happener, @funkycoda and @alegrya for organising), including many Picnics too
  • Girl Geek Dinners (@damana you rock!)
  • Various catch up’s with @trib and @mspecht when they have been in Sydney
  • Interesting South No. 2
  • CodeCamp Oz (we missed @ceibner but I had a great time with the boys)
  • Demos Happen Here Comp (thanks to @rog24 and @coatsy)
  • PubCamp (thanks to @jedwhite and @mediamum)
  • TechEd Week, Women in Technology event (even though I did not attend TechEd)
  • Web 2.o University, Web Directions Week and AussieTUB (even though I did not attend Web Directions itself)
  • GirlTUB x 2 (excellent evenings out with the twitter girls)
  • Sydney Open Coffee (thanks @kimheras for an excellent idea)
  • SBTUG (Sydney Business and Technnology User Group, thanks to @craigbailey & @aussienick)
  • BarCamp x 2 (one which I helped organised and the other thanks to the org team esp @funkycoda)
  • NSW KM Forum (thanks to @cheiftech for including me on the panel at the last minute)
  • WebBlast (thanks @russmaxdesign and @happener)
  • Very regular catch up’s with twitter peeps – Nano STUB’s Micro STUB’s, Mini STUB’s

I’m sure there are others that I have not mentioned, but wow, that is some list!

And the excellent non-tech events

  • Family Wedding in Tumut in September
  • Various trips up to the Gold Coast / Brisbane

And a very special mention to the people and events during my trip

  • GGD in London
  • Be2camp in London (thanks to @eepaul, @pbroviak and @martinbrown)
  • Green Drinks in London (excellent evening)
  • Dinners out with people in Barcelona during World Architecture Festival
  • Wonderful Family and Friends catch-ups

Next year is shaping up for another big one with

  • New Years Eve again (thanks to @ceibner again)
  • CupCake Camp in Feb
  • More STUB’s
  • Another BarCamp or 2
  • The remotest possibility of a Be2Camp in Sydney some time
  • Definitely more GirlTUB’s and GGD’s
  • We definitely need another Wild Wicked Wanton Women of the Web 2.0 event (looking at you @silkcharm)
  • I really hope to get to more conferences in 2009
  • I need to start to get to Social Coffee on Friday mornings (thanks to @servantofchaos that organises this)
  • ooh and my Family trip in May to celebrate my Mum and Dad’s 50th Wedding Aniversary, and a family Wedding in March

And I just have to make special mention to the biggest group of wonderful people on twitter this year that I have had the pleasure to hang with

The girls: @ceibner, @kcarruthers, @silkcharm, @pixel8ted, @alegrya, @misswired, @mediamum, @damana, @headwellred, @christydena, @bronwen, @allidc, @zuzu, @aussieAna, @dekrazee1

The the guys: @trib, @funkycoda, @dizzystuff, @lstoll, @aussienick, @cadbloke, @angusscown, @nickhac, @stillgherian @apostrophepong, @snarkyplatypus, @mpesce, @nathanaelb, @rog42, @coatsy, @ryancross, @fush, @flungabunga, @seancarmody, @marclehmann, @sethyates, @jedwhite, @maniacd, @jamesbreeze, @mspecht, @aDB, @warlach, @coliwilso, @liako, @eskimo_sparky, @gregdwyer

The UK Peeps: @martinbrown, @eepaul, @melstarrs, @jodiecarnegie, @amcewen (and of course @pbroviak virtually)

And all the Perth / Melb / Canberra peeps that were around for AussieTUB and I’ve probably left many people off the list, but thanks to you all!

Wow, I really hope 2009 is even more social, I meet even more people and the Sydney Tech community has many many more great events!

world architecture festival

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Recently I attended the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona. This was the first event of it’s kind, a combination between an architecture awards and an architectural themed conference. Now I’m not an architect, so why was I there. Firstly it was in Barcelona, and I’ve been wanting to travel to Barcelona for years to look at the architecture, especially Gaudi’s stuff, and Secondly I have a huge interest in Architecture and found a few years ago that just about every bit of travel I have done has been around Architecture, so why not combine the two – going to the Architecture conference in Barcelona combined a few things that I was interested in. (I recently did a Pecha Kucha presentation about my interest in Architecture and Travel which you can find here).

There were a few main themes at the conference, one was on Sustainability and one was on Height (eg how to build super tall buildings like the Burj Dubai). Whilst the presentations from both series were interesting there were a few things that just didn’t gel.
In the height series, not one architect discussed anything about the IT systems of the building – yes they discussed new features in Air Conditioning and Glass Facades but nothing about Fibre Optic cabling, how the building with that many people in it will all connect to the internet at the same time, wireless, or even locations and design of server rooms, maybe having a data centre in the building, or anything remotely resembling IT. As an IT geek I was a bit disappointed about that, but I suppose that’s a low priority when talking about building a mega structure.
On the subject of IT, there was no IT discussed at the conference at all. No practice management topics about the use of computers in architecture, no topics about how Second Life and other virtual worlds are (or are not) changing the face of architecture, or not even any topics on new presentation techniques. The most “out there” presentation technique was a powerpoint slideshow with maybe an embedded video. The only IT company that was present at the conference was HP, and that was mainly to give the student charrette access to printers. I would really expect that the next conference has a full stream of technology related presentations, and a showing from some of the major technology players in architecture such as Autodesk and Bentley to name just two. Architecture is about communication – communication of the idea behind the building, communication with the environment, communication with the occupants of the building. How can architects ignore the most prevalent communication medium of our times – the internet. 
In the sustainability series I was very disappointed overall. They were just re-hashing passive solar principles that have been around for decades, and adding a bit of new technology in glass facades or particular materials. There was nothing startlingly new, no technology that is revolutionising the industry and helping make buildings “green”. Green buildings is just a fad and a label to say that the architect has actually designed the building properly, thinking about passive solar and energy efficiency principles, it is not new… One of the Sustainability presentations was a full hour on an architect who had designed a church to be moved from one location to another… now just moving a building once does not make it sustainable! what about all the custom materials it was constructed with in the first place. I think the organisers need to vet the content a bit before the event, to make sure the presentations are on the right track. Now of course that is just my gut feel from the 3 day conference, and I would really like to do a lot more reading and research about this to be a bit more informed, but it has definitely sparked my interest to learn more about sustainability of buildings generally, but I think that is another blog post. 
But as far as the conference itself goes, some of the organisation of the conference was not very sustainable at all – sending out A4 sized envelopes around the world, containing posters and the agenda that is available on line, is not very sustainable – at least an opt in system would have been good, as I certainly did not need it. 
Other aspects of the conference that were just not good at all was the food and coffee, or lack of it. If you pay AU$1100 for a 3 day conference you would at least expect to get some coffee and a small snack at morning tea – they had nothing, not even water. And at the opening drinks there was plenty of alcohol, but only crisps and olives to nibble on (obviously Spain does not have responsible service of alcohol laws). They really need to pick up the game on this next year. 
But on the subject of price, the post conference survey suggested that they may be increasing the price significantly next year to make it much more exclusive. I don’t think it was economic value for AU$1100 so it would need to be much much better if they were increasing the price. And on the subject of exclusivity, I really felt that there were three types of people at the conference – those like me who were interested in the conference and the content of the presentations; those that were in the competition and were there to meet and greet as many people as possible; and then the superstars – those that were not allowed to mingle with the rest of us (one of the organisers made a comment “we wouldn’t want anyone to ask Lord Foster what his favorite colour is”), and were whisked away to their private meetings and luxury hotel suites as soon as they came off stage. I would really like to see less of that at the next conference. 
Technology at the conference was lacking also – there were about 6 PC’s available for internet usage (which was at least good) and no wifi. There was no streaming of the presentations on-line for later viewing by attendees and the “social networking” (if you could call it that) on the WAF site was a huge joke, as it only allowed emails to one person at a time. Next time please just set up a free Ning site or something simple like that to enable attendees to interact before, during and after the event. One thing they did do quite well with technology was the World Buildings Directory online site – a complete list with details and images of all the buildings that entered the awards. Hopefully this site will just grow from here and become even better.  But the same can’t be said for the main WAF site, which was quite ugly and very difficult to navigate. 
I covered most of these topics in my evaluation survey of the conference. But even after all these negative points, I actually quite enjoyed the conference content and got a lot out of some of the sessions and met some really great people. I don’t think I would go again (unless someone paid me to), so it was a great opportunity to go to this one. I hope next year they have it in a different city to move it around Europe each year.

My Travel Tips

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This is a very long post, it’s mainly just info for me to remember next time I travel

Positives

  • Overall i did well, I was worried about going in the first place, as I really don’t like getting places, but I actually enjoyed it all for the most part (except maybe the 14hr flight home and the week of Jetlag).
  • I could navigate around quite well, and follow signage most times… you get to understand the words for entry and exit in foreign languages quite quickly.

Maps

  • Get a small plastic coated fold out map, and a marker pen that writes on it. The hotel paper maps just don’t last.
  • Google Maps is great, but it’s also great to have something to mark up and plan your assault on the city (especially in Paris where some Museums are closed Monday and some are closed Tuesday).

Museums

  • Get there early – like 45mins before opening, so you are first in.
  • Don’t go with someone who has different ideas than you, or make a deal to look at things at your own pace – I go through museums very very quickly because I’m a visual person and one 10sec look is as good as staring at the thing for a few mins. I would go nuts if I could not get in and out of some of these places quickly.
  • The most important tip – get prepaid entry tickets where possible that allow you to skip the queue. I waited over an hour and a half in the queue for the Picasso exhibition in Paris and did not get anywhere in the queue because the museum filled up with all the special people first. So I left the queue and didn’t see the exhibition.
  • Being slightly claustrophobic meant that if I had to miss out on something, I just would… eg the Eiffel Tower, when it had the sign up saying overcrowding was possible at the top and the queue was a mile long, I decided then and there that it was not worth it – there are many other tall things in Paris to climb (the hundreds of stairs at the Arc De Triomph for example). 
  • Watch out for the Gypsy beggars around the Musem’s in Paris – I got targeted by them 3 times. Twice was someone picking up a Gold ring whilst walking towards me, then asking me if it was my ring. I don’t know what the scam was but I just knew it was not right, and when it happened exactly the same way the second time I knew there was something to it. 

Metros

  • London, Paris and Barcelona’s were great. Easy to navigate and get around, but boy some of the connections at the bigger stations went for miles and miles.
  • Whilst I was mainly on the District and Circle lines in London that are not very much underground, some of the tube stations feel like they are miles underground, which is not good for my level of claustrophobia. I tried to find a 3d map of the London tube system but, probably for good reasons, it is banned for security purposes. 
  • I had to get used to the crush… I worked out that if at least 1 or 2 people got off then I could fit… and if I just did not want to squeeze in, there is always the next one.
  • In London it was best to get into the middle of the seats area next to the pole – it is way from the doors.
  • Barcelona and Paris on some route’s have connecting carriages that open up the whole train – this is great as they are much less claustrophobic.
  • Beggars and buskers on trains are a real pain.
  • I need to learn how to say “turn your iPod down” in every language.

Beer

  • Beer in London is great – the Ale’s rather than the Lager’s. Contrary to popular belief they are served cold and they are not gassy and very tasty.
  • Beer in Spain is great – it’s cheap, and cold, and even cheaper than a soft drink or water in a lot of cases… sometimes not a great idea to have a few beers over lunch and then go out touristing.
  • Beer in Paris is expensive and not worth it… occasionally wine may be cheaper but not very nice, and mostly all drinks, including sparkling mineral water are very expensive.

Coffee

  • I think I probably had about 2 good coffees on the whole trip. In London they try to pass off filtered coffee as americano / long black and even when they use a proper coffee machine it’s still very weak.
  • So I switched to double espresso’s from then and still struggled… a few in Barcelona were thick as mud and tasted just as bad, and in Paris they were a half decent long black in a tiny cup, but still on the weak side for a long black.
  • Switching to espresso in Spain was much easier as it’s easier ordering an “espresso doble” than an Americano.
  • Trying to pass of Nespresso coffee (the ones made with the pod’s) as real coffee at the conference was really bad – but funnily enough the American’s loved it.
  • Back home and even the long black’s are quite strong… we have good coffee here, but I’m sure I did not find the good places whilst away.

Flights

  • Next time I go, I’m going to have someone waiting at the airport with my name on the card. I have proved to myself that I can do it – I can do the transfers myself and get there myself – I worked each route out down to the last step, and when Google Street View is available in more countries it will actually be much much easier. In Paris, for example, I actually got to my hotel without having a map – there was a local area map at the metro station and I found the last few streets from there. It’s just a pain to get through metro stations with luggage.
  • 7 Flights in 25 days (6 International), and I had 1 piece of lost luggage for 24hrs and one 2 hr delay – so that’s really not too bad, I think.

Luggage

  • Having good luggage really made a difference… It was light – even at 16.9kg full it was easy to carry and manoeuvre, and It was easy to pack.
  • The wheels are good – and they don’t make that horrible clickly noise on the cobble stones – it just wheeled effortlessly behind me most times.
  • Thank goodness I had basic change of clothes and all necessary toiletries (including shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, toothpaste and cleanser in the little bottles in the clear plastic sealed bag) in my hand luggage as it came in very handy when my bag took the scenic route to Paris and I did not have for 24hrs (but that wasn’t all the airline’s fault… they were quite good… the bag had arrived at the hotel early in the morning but they did not tell me about it).

Packing

  • I had a great system for packing up at each hotel – clear the bed and make piles – handbag; pockets; backpack; toiletries; bag.
  • I had a large mesh back for dirty washing, which worked great for taking to the laundromat or serviced laundry also, plus separating the dirty from clean in the bag.
  • I packed toiletries first, then shoes, and other hard stuff, then squeezed in the clothes around them
  • My bag had a separate compartment for underwear and small things, so they did not get lost floating around in the main part of the bag, this worked really well.
  • I was very successful in only buying tiny souvenirs that did not weigh much at all 15.9kg going out and 16.9kg coming back.

Hotels

  • I picked well with the hotels… one was recommended to me, the rest I picked myself.
  • I always went for the newest or refurbished one so at least the bathrooms would be good.
  • I researched trip advisor extensively.
  • It pays to query something, as at the Umi hotel in London, I queried the recent upgrade of the hotel as they had some bad trip advisor comments, and they gave me a fridge in the room and a nice bottle of Australian wine on arrival – excellent service!
  • Get one with wifi included free – the Praktik in Barcelona was great! the London and Paris hotels had paid services which is a real pain fiddling with user names and passwords each time you want to log on… i’m sure they really don’t make that much money on the internet so they should just give it away for free!!! and these expensive hotels that charge 30 euro per day for internet access are a joke!!!!!

Hotel Details (I will do trip advisor ratings and upload some video later)

  • London – Umi Hotel – great for 50 pound a night but unless they really keep up with the maintenance it could get bad quickly. Great service and good breakfast included.
  • Bilbao – Miro Hotel – lovely hotel and right near to the Guggenheim – this one was the most expensive when I booked but when the dollar crashed it ended up being the same price, as I had paid for this one when the dollar was high.
  • Barcelona – Praktik Hotel – excellent Hotel, very small rooms, no services, but great price and great location – and free Wifi or Computer.
  • Paris – Hotel Jeanne D’Arc – older style but still clean and reasonable. Good service generally, OK breakfast, reasonably priced WiFi, but excellent, excellent location.

Chatting to people

  • Whilst I would love to travel with someone else for a lot of the time, travelling alone makes me much more outgoing than I normally am – I force myself to chat to people, and especially when everyone around is talking Spanish or Vrench it is great to have a chat to the nearest English speaking person, and I met some great people that way.
  • On the first tour of the architecture festival, after the tour, I went up to three of the guys that were on the tour alone and invited them to come and get some dinner with me (after a disastrous lunch, and feeling very hungry, I suggested to them that it’s a better idea to stuff up the meal ordering as a group than as a solo person). Two of they guys said yes, and we went and had a meal… yes, we didn’t make a great choice with our meal, but we had great conversations and met up again a few times over the course of the conference to share a meal or coffee and became great conference buddies.
  • Serendipity also plays a part – in Bilbao I had a lovely afternoon tagging along with an English couple and then ran into them in the street twice again that night. In Barcelona I ran right into my turkish dinner buddy in the middle of the busy main street, far away from both our hotels.
  • There was also a lovely German couple, an American older lady who was well travelled and travelling alone, and a lovely German lady also that I chatted to on my travels, just to mention a few.
  • Also catching up with friends and family was excellent – it was as the years apart had vanished as soon as I started chatting to them.

Events

  • The conference was great for interaction and it’s a great thing to do to have something to do where you know you will have something in common with the people there – an instant talking point.
  • Aussies will always find other Aussies and i met so many at the conference – you can spot an Aussie accent a mile off in a sea of yanks and poms.
  • The Be2Camp, Green Drinks and the Girl Geek dinners in London were great – excellent conversations with like minded people – and many business cards exchanged – i have a lot of email catching up and linked in connections to foster now that I am home.

Itinerary

  • Going from <10 deg in Paris to >35 deg in Dubai in less than 24hrs is not a good idea – I was so chilled to the bone in Paris that with the temperature changes and the long flights I inevitably came down with a cold.
  • I need to allow myself time for rest… in just over 3 weeks I had 2 half days of rest… the other days have been go go go the whole time…
  • I have tried to do more things at night but after going going going the whole day i just want to crash in the evening, early… unfortunately CNN does not make for good wind down and relax television, so thank goodness for the internet and catching up with twitter, and for having a good book, which I bought when I had a 2hr delay at Gatwick.
  • There is no way in hell you would get me to Europe in the Summer. I went late October / Early November and there was still way too many tourists for my liking (especially in Paris)… I will happily cope with the cold to avoid the tourists!

Communciations

  • The eeepc was a godsend – just being able to have the computer available any time was great… and it’s so easy to carry around – not lugging a big laptop around
  • Getting the sim card in London was great, especially paying 5 pound for unlimited internet access on the phone.
  • Even if you have to pay to use the internet on the mobile phone it is great, especially for things like google maps when you are lost (and with the phone’s built in GPS it works really well).
  • Twitter – I really would not have coped without twitter – being able to keep in contact with everyone back at home and see that life was happening just the same every day was great, and being able to update my travels onto twitter was great also… I think therefore I twitter is an apt saying… it’s not real and it didn’t happen, unless it’s on twitter.

Well most of this post was typed on the eeepc whilst waiting for my Paris / Dubai flight… I think there are a lot of good tips for me to remember for next time, especially having a particular purpose for the trip, meeting up with friends, and giving myself time to rest.

Some photos from my trip are now on Flickr

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I took lots of photos on my Europe trip – 1185 to be exact, but I won’t bore you with those, including over 280 just of Gaudi’s architecture in Barcelona. But I’ve uploaded 91 pics that are a sample of London, Bilbao, Barcelona, Paris and Dubai.

Here is a link to the slideshow if you want to look at the pics.  

And on the subject of Dubai, this is my favorite photo of all the pictures I took, it’s of the Burj Al Arab taken from the Madninat Jumeirah hotel

Burj Al Arab from Madinat Jumeirah Hotel

It was such a lovely evening… Dubai is at it’s most stunning in the evening, after the sun goes down.  This was just after I had done high tea at the Burj Al Arab (for $185, which was totally not worth it finance wise, but was a great experience).

Been a bit slack lately

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I’ve been a bit slack with my blog posts lately… I’ve been away and now focussing on Job Hunting, so that’s been keeping me busy… I do have a number of blog posts brewing / half written so there will be more to come soon, including details of my trip.

I’ve gone public to stay connected

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There is much debate in twitter land about public vs private accounts. I have a private account and I like it… but I do miss out on participating in hashtag debates etc because my stream is not available for indexing on search.twitter.com.

I’ve always wanted twitter to have a feature where I could include an escape charater in my tweet (eg start with a ! or a ~ or similar) that would allow that tweet only to appear in the public timeline… but until that feature is implemented, it’s either all or nothing.

So, I’ve created a second twitter profile called JodieM_ex. The ex on the end is a bit of an old construction / joinery term which means “out of” so this is @jodiem “out of” the private tweet stream.

However, I’ve created it mainly because I’m lazy… it’s a great way for me to share what is happening on my forthcoming overseas trip to family, friends and other interested parties… they can just go there any time they want and get a stream of the latest news as to what I’m doing… and I know that I will update this as I can just update it via SMS… that way I don’t have to send postcards or emails and accidentally forget to share the news with someone who may be interested.

I’ve also added all my trip details such as flights and accommodation to a Google calendar and shared that with close family. I sync that calendar with my mobile phone so I have all the details at hand where ever I am.

I’m taking my eee pc with me and I will be able to access email and the internet, including twitter via the mobile phone… or if all else fails there will be internet cafe’s…

So I hope all this personal technology works and I can keep everyone up to date with what I’m doing.

creating opportunities?

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There was an interesting discussion on twitter the other day about goals, which made me think. I don’t do goals very often as I am disappointed when they don’t work out. I hate even planning too far ahead in case things go wrong.

For example, I’m heading to Europe for a 4 week trip in October. I booked and paid for the ticket in November last year… I booked and paid for all the accommodation 3 weeks ago and last week I was retrenched from my job… Damn that! 7 weeks before leaving to go away and I now have no job. Do I cancel, or take a chance and still go? But what about coming back to Sydney at the beginning of November with no job and no money? Or do I bet on myself and hope that something will come up in the meantime and something will come up when I get back?

I really don’t want to cancel as I cancelled a ticket I had booked to go to Europe 2 years ago, due to uncertainty about work and finances… but this time I’ve paid for everything except spending money already, and I’ve got that put aside… My thoughts are at the moment just to go for it, and worry about the finances and the work situation when I get back…

I’ve always been an opportunist – jumping from one opportunity to the next when they come along… like my last job (the one I was just retrenched from), I had a good steady job that I was just settling into, and out of the blue, I was approached and offered this job… it was a great opportunity, to work with software in the construction industry – basically what I do best at – utilising all my construction knowledge and IT skills. It was a great job and a great opportunity, I loved that job for the most part. But knowing what I know now, (ie that I was going to be out of a job in 3 months) I definitely would not have taken it – opportunity cost, I suppose.

So now I’m waiting for the next opportunity to come up… will it be in Sydney or will I have to go farther afield? (eg I would love to go to Melbourne, or even OS).  Will it be working in Construction or in IT? (it’s hard having a split work personality – I could do either, but both together is best). Will it be contract work or a full time position? (and can I earn enough money to keep the mortgage payments up?).

But that lead me to thinking – why am I waiting for the next opportunity, how can I create the next opportunity? I suppose I just have to take my own advice that I gave on the recent Geek Girls Blogs podcast and put myself out there for the opportunities to find me.

At the moment I am still angry and upset about my current situtation, but I will pull out of it, and I will get a new job, I just don’t like this not knowing what’s next (except for my trip of course). So I need to put it out there to the universe that this is what I want. I want to get a few weeks contract work between now and when I go away, so I can feel useful and still pay the mortgage. I then want go away to Europe and have a fantastic time and meat wonderful people at the two conferences I’m going to. Then I want an excellent job starting around the 4th or 5th of November, with a company that will appreciate my hard work and loyalty, and pay me well enough to live and pay the mortgage. I hope that’s not too much to ask for.

Melbourne is the Best City in Aus

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I’ve just spent 3 days in Melbourne, for the first time in over 5 years, and I had an absolute blast. I went down there to do 2 things (see Picasso and attend Furnitex) but ended up doing and seeing a heap more – including doing a podcast!!! Here’s a quick rundown of what I did and saw between midday Thursday and 6pm Saturday

  • Listened to G’Day world and Productivity show on the plane, was so inspired and texted Cameron right there on the plane and said I wanted to do a podcast, can we set it up for tomorrow (we were going to catch up for a coffee anyway)
  • Met up with my friend who caught the plane half hour after me
  • Caught skybus to the city – excellent service $24 return – 20mins to city
  • Walked to Hotel Ibis 600 Little Bourke Street – excellent hotel for a cheap city hotel
  • Lunch at Bar Hum Bug next to hotel – excellent food
  • Tram to Exhibition Centre – what a fantastic building
  • Saw Decoration and Design and Furnitex – D&D was great, but Furnitex was a bit disapointing – but both were completely overstimulatiing to the visual senses.
  • Needed a drink! stopped at The Establishment in King Street for a quick G&T
  • Bit of a rest before dinner – could not rest – too much going on so I pop down to the internet cafe in the foyer, check some emails, create a wordpress.com blog for my community group I belong to and do some preparation for tomorrows podcast
  • Dinner again at Bar Hum Bug – again excellent food – and 1/2 bottle of red wine
  • Take a taxi to show us around Docklands and to find an after dinner coffee place
  • Ended up a tour of docklands, then the city then down to Federation Square
  • Affogato at Lower House at Fed Square – a Parisian Wine Bar – good Coffee
  • Back to hotel
  • 12midnight, 1am, 2am, 3am – NO Sleep – had a mild panic attack because I could not sleep, tried TV watching, classical music, sleep tape, herbal sleep stuff and prescription medication – managed about 2 hours total in the night – I’m sure the cause was complete over stimulation of the senses – and too much wine and coffee.
  • Breakfast at the hotel – completely stuffed due to lack of sleep
  • Headed down to NGV International – was a bit too early so went for a walk around Southbank
  • Saw Picasso – Great but probably too much to see – found 5 of my favorites – one of the Sleeping Woman oil’s was my favorite there.
  • Tour around NGV International – absolutely superb building – just to see the stained glass roof again was worth it.
  • Cameron picks me up
  • Lunch at Mario’s cafe in Brunswick Street – Fantastic Food and good coffee
  • Do Productivity Show podcast – I sucked at it, but it was fun
  • Go to PolyEster books – definitely a must if you are down that way
  • Cameron drops me off at Royal Exhibition buildings (another must see building) to see the rest of Furnitex with my friend
  • Pop into Melbourne Museum (was opened just after I was last in Melbourne so I had not seen it yet)
  • A few hours to kill so tram down to Chapel Street
  • Had to stop off for a quick afternoon beer
  • Take the tram back to Fed Sq via Bridge Road
  • Early Dinner at Fed Sq – terrible food and even worse service – Time Out Cafe at Fed Sq
  • Back to Hotel – friend on bus as she’s heading home – early to bed with sleeping tablets
  • Slept in late and had 20mins to be up, showered, dressed, packed and checked out – did it.
  • Tram down to Docklands. Breakfast at Berth Cafe over the water – good food but service was a bit lacking.
  • Saw the Da Vinci Machines exhibition – not really worth it for the $18 but probably would have been better if I had more time
  • Tram down to Federation Square – this time for a proper look around
  • Saw TV50 a fantastic exhibition of 50 years of Aus TV at ACMI (Australian Centre for Moving Images) – they have a wall of 750 TV’s – talk about overstimulation of the senses
  • Sent a text message to the Optus Message Board at Fed SQ
  • Tour of Fed Square – excellent and learned a lot about the building – book at Melbourne Information Centre
  • Quick 15 mins through NGV Australia – Ian Potter Center – mainly to see the absolutely stunning building and do a pilgrimage to the McCubbin
  • Bought a 2nd hand book at the book fair at Fed SQ
  • walked right through a protest by the Lebanese against Israel
  • Tram back to Hotel to pick up luggage
  • Skybus to Airport to Check in
  • Friend picks me up and I go to her house for about 45mins to see her new house and consult on her renovations
  • Back to the airport, on the plane, try to relax but can’t
  • Home – back to normality – Crash and sleep very soundly!!!
  • Wake up today – did I really just have this crazy three days away??? yep and it was worth every crazy fast paced second.

Now back to reality…

One of those days

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On Thursday I had one of those days… you know, one that you will probably never forget – it was all small stuff that would probably go unnoticed most days but when they all happened on the same day and within the same couple of hours, that’s something. Anyway here’s what happened between about 1 and 3pm on Thursday.

  • I had a nasty phone call with Holden Australia who renegged on a deal that we had done verbally and it was then going to cost me $800 more to fix my car – which the Holden dealer had broken – I was not  happy and started crying (yeah, I know typical pathetic female…). Unfortunately this was at my desk at work and just as the big boss was walking by.
  • The big boss stopped to ask me what was wrong and went away to find a box of tissues for me – very kind of him. When I told him what Holden had done, he picked up my letter, took it away and said “leave this with me, I’ll sort them out”. He came back the next day and said that Holden had agreed to pay the $800. I was very surprised and very flattered that a senior exectutive of the organisation should show such kindness and I am extremely grateful.
  • Straight after talking to the boss, I picked up a message on my phone – U2 had been “cancelled” – Wow, that was a BIG shock – I have tickets to both Brisbane and Sydney and flights to Brisbane – I couldn’t beleive it and got on line to verify and yep, there it was, U2 had postponed their concerts. I hope we don’t have to wait as long as those are still waiting for the Kylie concert. Both tickets were my only birthday and christmas presents last year, so I do hope I get to use them before my birthday comes around again this year.
  • Whilst I was looking on the news site about U2, the very next article was about the death of Harry Seidler, the renowned Australian Architect. I knew he had been ill for a while, but it was very sad to hear of his passing. He has had such a significant impact on both Sydney’s and Australia’s architecture, he will never be forgotten. And for the record, I love Blues Point Tower… Today my friend bought me a book of Harry Seidler’s world travels to see architecture around the world – very fitting as every overseas trip I have been on has been to see architecture and my next trip to Europe at the end of the year is no different, I am planning to go to Dubai, London, Paris, Barcelona and Bilbao and have my list of the different buildings I am going to visit when I am there.

So, as you see, each event was not significant, but wow, they all hit me bang, one after the other and had a huge impact, so it will be a day that I will remember for a long time.

I’m gunna be a Flashpacker

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I love it when I find a new label that I can apply to myself – I found this one in the Sunday paper and it fitted me to a T. I’m gunna be a Flashpacker… Aparently a flashpacker is a backpacker who wants the benefits of backpacking but wants to live it up a bit. That’s me. At the end of the year, I’m going on my first trip to Europe – it’s my 40th birthday present to myself. Yep, I know it’s going to be cold, but I spent 3 months in the US in winter so I have all my cold weather gear and I don’t mind the cold and the snow. So, the Money’s all put aside, the leave is booked in, The rellies and friends in Dubai and London have been booked in and all I need to do now is plan how I’m going to spend that money in my 5 weeks away. I’m planning going to Spain to see the Architecture (Gaudi in Barcelona and the Guggenheim in Bilbao) and would like to see a bit of Paris and a lot of London. I think that’s enough for 5 weeks away. Plus a stop over to visit my cousin in Dubai on the way over (and maybe another cousin in Phuket on the way back). So I’ve got a bit of reasearch to do now on how to be an effective Flashpacker and have lot’s of fun.