Onwards ...

I've set up a few goals for this year so 2012 is going to be a year of new challenges for me.


They're little things, little steps, like improving my health, actually exercising this year, accepting myself, breaking some habits, finding new things to do and learn while focusing on all the things I love.


I'm training, teaching, researching and learning and working almost a full time week over the next month or so, so I am looking forward to what work brings this year.


I also am going to find something I would love to study and teach myself something new - like Spanish. or boxing or sailing or graphic design or nutrition something ...


This is going to be my goal this year! It's my lucky year - the Year of the Dragon so there are going to be some challenges and changes ahead!

The fastest year ever!

2011 has just whipped by!

I keep thinking that I should still be in February attending to my new year's resolutions which were to eat healthier and exercise more.

I have read hmmm lets' see over 250 books this year (mostly chick lit, memoirs and anything strange/interesting I find in St Vinnies) - my favourite businessy book of this year is  I'm Feeling Lucky The Confessions of Employee Number 59 which is a  funny, insightful and totally unexpected look into Google - it is the most incredible read. I am currently reading a Christmassy book and a love story about a bookshop owner - both semi-light reads. One of these days I will make a list of all the books I have read - it should be interesting looking back!

I have watched hundreds of B grade movies - mainly for entertainment value and because I take everything so literally it is so nice to switch off sometimes.

I adore and have enjoyed every episode of Modern Family , but have also loved True Blood, Dexter, Unforgettable, Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl, Mildred Pierce, Frozen Planet and Happy Endings - it's one of the joys of having Foxtel, recording and watching later.

My favourite movie this year was My Name Is Khan, if you have not seen this yet, it's amazing. I was blown away by the lead actor who has Asperger's Syndrome in the movie, it combines Muslims and Christianity, good vs evil, finding love and ultimately it's a tear jerker.

I have had the most incredible year business wise, training, gaining new clients - even building up fans and followers! I've taught people the how, what, when, where and why of social media and have learnt an incredible amount.

Apart from following the news, reading everything I could get my hands on, meeting people, talking too much, learning and training away - I have also trying to make my own small difference in the world. (I tried to focus on one random act of kindness a day and ended up learning a lot about people!)

I have goals and resolutions in place for 2012 (I'll keep the business ones but have to focus on actually keeping the personal ones too) and a plan to travel to somewhere I have always wanted to go to in 2013.

Wishing you all a very happy holiday and a happy new year!

Dying for Food

Food is available to me. 

Readily. I can pick up the phone and order for delivery. I can access the Internet and order online. I can pop into one of the hundreds of convenience stores in my area alone and pick up snacks, like chocolate, biscuits and lollies.

I shop for groceries at least once a week. And I usually buy way too much. And as soon as something expires, I throw it away. I waste. I don't finish my meals at restaurants, they are far too big. I throw out anything I can't give to someone and I donate tins of food to the hungry. ( when I was younger, now I donate to the WFP and other funds helping Africa online)

I have no understanding of the words I'm starving. We (the lucky ones) use that term when were hungry. And I often look into the fridge and find nothing that I wish to eat at that moment.

When I was young and living in South Africa, I had hot and cold clean running water AND electricity AND a roof over my head AND access to medicine. I had plenty of food, my childhood memories are of favourite meals and treats.

I have never experienced a single day without a meal - unless it was my choice. I have never woken up hungry, never gone to sleep hungry and never walked (or crawled, or swam or endangered my life) for kilometres in search of food.

I have never sucked on a seed to try and satiate a starving child or gone without a spoonful of porridge or rice, so someone else can be less hungry, less malnourished, less likely to die within the next day or so.

The WFP is providing nuritional food products which don't always have to be mixed with water, because the access to clean water fit for drinking is limited in some parts of Africa and in other countries all over the world. There are millions of people in conflict, experiencing war, prevented by terrorists/war lords/ misgoverned governments or poverty - to have access to two things which are our basic rights, food and water.

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal)  per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9).  The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.  

Africa is still paying a world debt. The aid they have received has been misused and often people who need the resources, who need to help their dying families, communities and cattle cannot access the food needed to keep them alive. Not satiated, just simply alive. I have read stories of people who walked for 25 days to get aid. I have seen pictures of children crawling, dying just to get help.

Today is World Food Day (16th October) The FAO (whose headquarters are in Rome) have a motto “fiat panis” (let there be bread. Today is Blog Action Day with the topic of food to raise awareness of our universal relationship with food. To those without, to those who struggle with food choices, to those who eat too much or too little.

This post is in honour of all those who are dying for food. While I, the lucky one, have an abundance of food choices and access to food 24/7. I know that there are millions of people who have never had a pizza delivered to their home. Or have not been able to afford a chocolate bar. And this is to those people who have never seen a supermarket, convenience store, farmers market and would probably be stunned by so much abundance and choice.

I can, will and do donate. I want my funds to help educate, provide water and food to promote a healthy lifestyle and encourage a happy, healthy future for people who lose everything, risk everything on a constant basis while I am the lucky one.

This video was taken in 2008 of footage of starving and dying children in Africa. I hope that WFP and their nutritional products and our donations from afar will help children to live.

New Skills Festival

Over the month of September The New Skills Festival will give you a chance to learn something new.


Jo has some fabulous bloggers taking part and she has a great giveaway on the blog at the moment, to win a copy of Playful Learning ...

http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2011/08/playful-learning-interview-and-givaway.html

Come learn something new everyday this September. 

2011 why are you speeding by so fast?

I read a quote once that the days seem long but the years are short - by a father to his son watching how fast his granddaughter was growing up and it resonated with me.


I remember when I was young, time seemed to go on forever. School especially but I also recall spending hours in the garden, playing with our dog/s and sitting in a tree waving at a neighbour sitting on her jungle gym. ( Hi C! We reunited on Facebook)


This year, I feel older. I feel like the quote really has struck with me. The year has been and is speeding by and every time, I look, I think of updating this blog all I am reading is how March, April, May, June, July just sped by (boring!) and it just seems like I could write this whole year off. Bring back 2011!


Work balances between feeling like I need to fill more of my days and not having enough time in the day. Having a small business has taught me more about life than I ever expected. It has given me the chance to try so many alternatives, resource so much information, assess a multitude of choices and meet people, fascinating small business owners who have so much to share.


I have always believed - no - I have been lucky. I am highly educated, I come from a great deal of support, I have been taught values and principles, I am lucky. I don't have to, I have never felt forced to work in a job or make career choices because I have to, because of a financial or other reason. I can believe that I can do work I love and sometimes struggle with the confusion of too little or too many clients, too much or too little work to do to month by month. But I am of the lucky few - who can go around stating this.


I often feel like I cannot blog, I cannot say things publicly on this blog, because I am exceptionally lucky. And so I spend my time, my days trying to learn about others. When there were rioters in London last week, looting shops, burning cars and buildings, damaging properties and small businesses, I was reading people's comments, reactions and judgements on social media accounts.


It's easy to sit behind a computer screen or a mobile phone and make comments and assumptions. I couldn't, I was shocked and disgusted, because looters were stealing TVs and then smashing them outside shops and I couldn't understand why. I still don't. I would love to hear from them. I would love to understand or if not understand than just get a glimpse into their choices. I don't want to see pictures of them, I wanted to hear someone talk about his/her life, whether he/she was broken, lost, bored, unhappy - 


Part of being on social media for me is training. I am lucky because I have been and am highly educated. I don't carry masters and I haven't graduated and thrown my black hat into the sky, where I came from education was vital. I cannot even begin to tell you how important I think books are, maybe because I am obsessed with books but honestly no matter what mood I am in, no matter my situation, my circumstance, whatever my day or week has been like, I turn to books.


Being a bookworm ( and meeting other bookworms) is funny. Introduce me to someone who loves books and reads  - connects me. I have met online through blogging and joining all those book websites like Shelfari, online friends who became real friends.


I have been reading, getting lost in words, learning through reading and when I look up from a book, it seems that somehow I need to find more of a balance. I want to understand this world and social media training is brilliant for me. It means that I get to spend hours with clients and teams, getting to know them while training and days when I am training, advising, assisting are the best days - the days where I love my business the most.


It also means that I am getting paid for researching and reading, how amazing is that? I get to do the things I love and still call it work. And then I meet people who have to work, who have families, mortgages, are carers and get a swift knock on the head that my role, my path in life should contain 3 things, kindness, compassion and education.


It took me a long time to get here. To get to this point in my life. I never understood those 3 things, until I realised that those where the three things that guided me. Sometimes, on my worst days when I am angry and impatient and snappy and just plain ^&II^%%#, I think of those surprising unexpected moments of kindness.


I have many; a woman giving me a spoonful of honey when I was low and shaking and couldn't talk and she stroked my shoulder and feed me until I calmed down. A man and his friend who came up and talked to me and then hugged me when I was crying . Strangers just telling me things about of the blue, things I really needed to hear at that moment. Most of the acts of kindness and compassion are completely and utterly random and they come from strangers.


The days might seem long but the years are short. I seem to spend most of my days, trying to find out who I am  - if only people in Somalia, India, Vietnam, China, Africa, in poverty stricken countries had that fortune.