Tips for moving to another city

Moving to an unfamiliar city with no family and friends is tough.  I'm not going to lie.  Here's a few tips to meet people:

• Live with roommates will help expand your social network fast.
• Join a few sport league is one of the best ways to meet people.
• Why not volunteer?
• Find a book club to join
  
• Talk to random people at coffee shop
• Try meetup.com
  
• Crash parties
• Plenty of fish might be my last resort
  

Why backpacking?

Time to think and meet a vast mix of people you will never meet at home.  Backpacking usually is longer in duration.  Depending on what time of backpacker you are, usually you will have more time to stay in a city, to interact with people, and to explore the city yourself.

After every trip, I learned something different.  During your normal day-to-day life at home, there's just no time and space for me to think about important but not urgent matters.  Being in a totally unfamiliar environment, having the luxry of time, and hearing thoughts and stories from other backpackers with different background and history breed the perfect environment to think.  The feeling is like someone open up the box that I was in.  All of a sudden, I have a lot more space and options.  

Stereotypically, my first trip was in 2005 when I was in my third year going to Europe.  It was a threesome girlfriends trip.  The trip opened my eyes up that there's so much more out there than I realized.  I learned there're different ways people can live their lives and that I have choice to choose what suit me most.

My second trip was in 2006.  It was a girlfriend-boyfriend trip to Thailand and China.  I realized and finally admit what works for me in a relationship was not what I was getting.  I learned to let go when you tried and things didn't work out.

Solo to Eastern Australia in 2007 was my third trip. I met so many solo backpackers from all over the world.  Solo backpacking is one of the most amazing thing I discovered.  You don't have anyone to social with so you are forced to meet and talk to people.  From this trip, I learned that everyone has a story behind them.  All of us are trying hard to live our lives to the fullest.  There's always a reaons behind people's action that make perfect sense to them.  Be open and listen.  There's more than one way of living and thinking.  Yours might not necessary be the best way.

My recent trip to South America was by far the best ever.  Life just keep getting better and more adventurous.  It was a threesome co-ed trip with 2 other a friend of a friend of a friend friends.  Random, exciting and totally AWESOME.  Backpacking gives me a strong feeling of "I'm alive".  This trip helped me put my life into perspective.  I learned to live in the moment - not the past or the future.  Life is to be enjoyed and should be filled with passion.  There's always a trade off - what will you get and what are you willing to give up.  My priority became a lot clearer after this amazing trip.

That's why I love backpacking....

Where I Have Been?

What are my Fav Advertisements?!

What commercials do people still talk about it after.....20+ years?

• Apple 1984 - One and only one time aired & people still talk about it. Who beats that?

Cool Stuff

• Tourism Queensland Australia Best Job in the World - Pretty damn good when you get loads of free PR, 19,900 YouTube about it, 35,000 applicants, 400,000 new visitors to your website and worldwide people are talking about it. Best value tourism campaign perhaps, agreed? Viral campaign hitting the right spot.

Can Women Have It All?

"It is so much harder to achieve what you want once you have kids." Sounds familiar?  I hear that a lot at work.  It is inevitable as a young women to wonder how difficult it is to start a family while still want to achieve something big in their career.  It was horrifying to hear your mentor telling you, "you can't have it all kiddo."  Does it mean that you can't have a family if you want to climb up that corporate ladder?  Even when I do have a family, does it make me a bad mother when I choose to put more focus in my career?  How would being away for 9-months to have my baby impact my caeer?  Do I have to find a partner who is willing to be a stay-at-home dad?

Planning is not just for work

Coming out of school and have been working for 2 years now.  I no longer have cirriculum to follow.  It is no longer the case that if you do X, you get an A.  In life, I can't seperate my career/working goal with my personal life as easily as when I was in school.  

All of a sudden, I realize it is all about what I want.  The first step to be successful can be as easy as deciding that you want to be successful.  Then, make a feasible plan with lots of help.  Coincidentally as I am thinking about this, a good friend at work send me info on developing personal life time goal - http://www.personal-development.com/

I do agree with Ben Franklin (1706 - 1790): "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."

Can I do it?

Climbing taught me a lot of non-physical lessons.  Sounds a bit odd? 

One thing I learned is fear can be people’s biggest enemy.  Most of the time, people have the capabilities to achieve whatever the thing is that they want.  However, it is the fear of failure, fear of XYZ that holds a lot of people back.  Knowing to manage your fear can be the key to success.   Wining the mind battle can be 50% of winning the game.