it's bloody freezing up here!!

Greetings from London! I did come here to visit the Queen but she ended up having to go to the Palace Christmas Party so she cancelled on me! Seriously bad form, Liz! ;-)

After 40 hours of travel I finally made it to Europe (via Tokyo & Zurich) but overall had a pretty good flight. Was a strange feeling leaving the airport and saying good bye to my family and Leah - but not really knowing where I was going - strange but exciting! Don't worry, Joe, I am not feeling timid - hell I just took off around the world without knowing where I was going or what I will be doing! I think all the things you described from AIESEC days definitely help me to face this uncertainty with a strong belief that "things will work out" and that there'll be a heck of a lot of learning and fun along the way. I really like your friend's quote by the way.

After arriving in London with my friend Amy, whom I've known since I was 2 years old, meeting me at the airport, I took off for Dublin the next day. I went to meet my old school friend, Natasha, there, before she went to Norway for Xmas.

We had a great time catching up and hearing of each other's adventures over the last few months & we were both able to empathise alot with eachother as her working permit has just been rejected for Ireland. We definitely came to the conclusion that the reason "it has to be so hard" is because we are both striving for something that means a lot to us and that is part of our dreams, otherwise, more ordinary things would be a lot easier to get. We both have to just do whatever is in our control and then let go and leave it to life to happen. And anyways, it's not what happens to you but how you deal with it that is important - so either way, we'll both be just grand!!

We both had a grand time at a house party on Saturday night - there was quite good craic there - as well as REAL holly!!! One thing I noticed about Ireland is it's very different TV programing...EG there was a show called "The Afternoon Show" - it started at 9am! At the bottle shop there was a funny sign: "If you are lucky enough to look under 21, even though you aren't, then please do us a favour and show your ID card"

Today I had a bit of a sleep in and have been gathering info re planes, trains and automobiles for my onward journeys. Looking forward to catching up with a few more Aussies tonight in Covent Garden. I am staying with my school friend, Kelly - so nice to be back in the bosum of old old friends - people who have known you for most of your life and are still willing to be your friend!! ;-)

Warm hugs from Angel
x Zoe

truly a nomad

It is a pretty long, complicated and boring story, but main point is that I couldn't get the work permit that UBS expected (mainly because authorities didn't understand my university's term for "deferring studies") and so that would mean that my internship would be "counted" in a different way internally if I was able to get a different type of work permit. So yep...no diversity traineeship for me at UBS :-(

It is disappointing to me that government and corporate bureaucracies prevent people and organisations exploring their potential, especially when we are talking about diversity, but I am not in a position to change these things right now, so I am looking to the future....trying to find the new door that is opening...somewhere....

One chance will be to work with Sanna from Finland in Sarajevo with the NGO called Education for Peace...such an inspiring organisation...but still waiting for the job description and selection process.

So in one week I will leave on a one-way ticket to Europe - go to London and Dublin to catch up with friends - and then have Christmas (and now New Years too!! :-) in Portugal and then....? A truly nomadic life awaits me!

We just had a wonderful "early Christmas" here with my family as I won't be in Australia on the 25th...and in some ways it made it harder to leave into this uncertainty...but in other ways it boosted my courage as I feel that with a family that loves me and whom I love so dearly, I can handle anything that comes my way!

Ho ho ho

x Zoe

how do you know....

they say that "when one door closes another one opens"...in fact i've told that to several people in different situations in the past and i do believe it...but now i'm wondering...

how do you know when one door is truly closed? and when it is time to start prying other spaces open? can you somehow cause one door to close by looking for others?

the door that seems to be closing rapidly is for my traineeship in UBS in Zurich, due to my work permit not being approved...feel like i have been straining to hold this door open for a couple of weeks now...

i am trying to act on those things in my circle of influence and then let it go to see what happens

but also use my circle of influence to search for other doors to open..but does one act become a self-fulfilling prophecy for the other somehow?

x Zoe

my fave girls

Pink Ladies
Originally uploaded by Zozo.

Well after getting a hard time from Gonkalo for being a Daddy's girl, wanted to include my Mummy too. Here she is "pretty in pink" with my sister, Kylie, before they went to our friend, Erin's, hen's night.

Long live cricket

Just returned from a one-day cricket match with my Canadian cousin, Jonothan, who is visiting Australia, the place of his birth, for around 6 months. For those of you chanting "what is cricket?" (as per IPM 2003 in Estonia) you can go here for the basic summary or here to download the 42 laws and 3 appendices of cricket!

Don't worry this post isn't about an analysis of the Queensland Bull's victory over the Tasmania Tigers in this cricket match, but reflection on random acts of kindness and how good it is to be able to engage in "small talk" with random strangers. First random act of kindness happened as I was placing the $50 on the counter to purchase tickets for my cousin and me...a guy came and tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Here you go, I have a free spare pass, it admits two people". Well thanks mate!

I spent the first few hours explaining excerpts of the 42 laws and 3 appendices to my cousin and comparing it with baseball as we watched the game...and after a while the guy in front of us turned around and congratulated me on my explanations and said I should work as a commentator for Foxtel. This was the random small talk that led to a random act of kindness much later in the game, when the guy gave his Queensland Bulls' hat (official merchandise) to my cousin as a souvenir to take back home with him. Strangely made me proud to be an Aussie at that moment :-)

There were many acts of small talk with random strangers through out the whole day, not all of which led to random acts of kindness...but all of them definitely contributed to a feeling of connection and community with the strangers sitting around us as we all watched other strangers throwing and hitting a ball around a field for 7 hours. And this feeling of connection and community is a nice one.

I hope this memory helps to push me to overcome the language barrier and make small talk with people in Zurich, or wherever I end up working next year, to build these connections. Something that I didn't push myself to do while I was living in Rotterdam.

Long live cricket.

x Zoe

From little things big things grow...

It's amazing how relatively small simple actions from individuals can both immediately and over time have such a big impact on others...I remember being quite inspired by this idea after I met some founding members of AIESEC at IC in Germany this year, but yesterday I had a few more encounters of this inspiring kind...

My Austrian Angel:
I had to get a letter from the university to prove that I haven't graduated yet to help with my work permit situation. It seems that most of the problems have been caused by some cross cultural communication challenges and understanding of the term "leave of absence". This means that I have not completed my studies but have deferred them to come back and continue them at later time. But apparently the Swiss authorities thought that this meant I have "left" university, IE graduated, and so they were suspicious of my application for a student-based work permit.

So anyways...went to get this letter from university administration. After I'd paid my $10 I went to explain it to the admin staff. I just happen to be lucky that the woman who served me is originally from Austria so could empathise with the whole cross cultural communication angle and instead of writing my letter in 5 working days, she did it in about 4 hours! So I could send this letter straight away to AIESECers in Switzerland and help to try to beat the clock on my application getting approved before I leave on 16 December.

Dankeschön to my Austrian Angel!

Global Change Fiesta

This event was held as part of the International Young Professionals Summit on Sustainable Development which is happening right now at Griffith University, Brisbane. The event is organised by International Young Professionals Foundation (not-for-profit public company working in the fields of human rights, poverty eradication, environment and social capital, within the broad context of sustainability. It utilises and promotes the resources, skills and knowledge that Young Professionals can bring to this arena in order to create a better world for current and future generations).

My friend, ex-MCP of AIESEC in Colombia, ex-MC of AIESEC in Australia and current trainee in Brisbane, got involved in organising the Fiesta and asked me to be the Master of Ceremonies for the evening's activities. It was really fun to be involved in organising something like this again, even though my role was very minimal and I was mainly involved on the night. The event was a mixture of cultural presentations from some of the international delegates at the Summit, tours to the Eco Centre at the University, discussions hosted by different organisations about topics related to sustainable development and stalls from around 30 different organisations who are working on related issues to learn more about what they do and how you can get involved.

There were of course the normal logistical dramas of organising any event, but overall it was really fun to be involved in it and it was also really inspiring to see so many individuals and organisations doing really great stuff towards a more sustainable future in Australia and abroad. And all of those organisations started from individuals with ideas and passion to put them into action.

And it was also really inspiring to work with Valentina on this event. She is really great example of someone being proactive in her own development and AIESEC Experience. Not only did she identify this Summit as part of her learning plan to be more socially responsible, she then took up volunteer responsibility to help organise the Fiesta and also ran a workshop about what AIESEC is doing towards sustainable development! She tried also to engage the local AIESECers to be involved but none of them came :-(

But it was really inspiring to work with Val on this event & a big "muchos gracias" to Val for giving me the opportunity to be involved!

Hugs from h ot down Under
x Zoe