"Live Your Life

Something that I've wanted to post about for the past few months is success. As I have an assignment due tomorrow and am 0/1000 on my word count, I thought "hey, now is a great time to procrastinate write a post".



A few months ago when I was re-enrolling for my last year of university I was struck down with a multitude of emotions.

I felt relieved that this would be my last undergraduate year.

I felt proud that I had finally made it to this point.

Then I felt embarrassed.



I
felt embarrassed because of the time it has taken me to complete my
degree. Yes, I've had a few stop/starts which were beyond my control.
But I also had a few bouts of failure. 

I am reminded of this
every day that I sit in a class with students that had not even begun
high-school, when I began at University.

I am reminded of this
every time that Brad and I talk about plans for the future. I get mad at
myself and feel as if it weren't for those failures that we would be
realising those dreams now. It hurts.



The reason I
wanted to post about this, is because I know others in my life hurt too.
We look at the achievements or milestones in the lives of those we
know, and instead of feeling out right joy for them, our feelings of
congratulations are marred with a tinge of jealousy.



We wonder what life would be like if we took a different career path.

We dream about where we would be if only we had done some thing different.

We wish that we had finished our degrees, and were out in the real world, earning real money. 

We worry that we may never know what it is we want to be when we "grow up".

We feel like we may be stuck at uni/in an un-fulfilling job forever. 





We have got to stop measuring ourselves against the success of others, their relationships, their jobs, their fortunes.



We
have to focus on our own happiness, in what ever shape or form it may
take. And whilst we are at it we may as well take an audit of all the
wonderful things we have in our own lives. 

All this energy wasted on entertaining the possibilities of our parallel lives is pointless.

In
wanting what others have, we miss the beauty of what we have already
been blessed with, our partners, children, our friends and family and
for some freedom.





I sat at my
Faculty Adviser's desk yesterday. He remarked on how long I had been at
University, and how many papers I had missed. He rudely, albeit, subtly
suggested how embarrassing that might be for me. This is what I said:



"Yes
I have failed a few papers. But I'm still here, aren't I? And I'm
applying to Graduate in December, so it can't be that bad, can it?"









Some people say that to enjoy life you must live it without regrets.



I don't believe this to be true.



What
I do believe is that whatever life you're living, enjoy it. It's yours,
and only yours. You can have regrets, as long as they are your regrets. You can and will have failures, but make sure that you failed doing something that you chose to do, not what others were doing or wanted you to do. It is your life after all, you may as well make the most of it.



Think about it.

“No I am sorry I think you've mistaken me for somebody else”

When I was in my last year of high school I hung out with a
girl who had a sister who was three years younger than us. One night I was
staying at this girl’s house and her sister had a friend over too. My friends
parents were going out for dinner that night, so the younger sister’s friend’s
Mum popped in to say hi check on us. This girls Mum was and still is a local
bus driver.

About eight months after I met this lady, I met her again as
I was getting on a bus after a long, looooong day at work. I was tired. The bus
driver might have said “hi Becky”. I was so tired that I just registered the “hi”
and I said hello back and found a seat. I thought about it on that ride home. Did she call me
Becky?

I told myself “Oh well next time if you are certain she says Becky, just
say actually it’s Nicole”.

A few weeks passed and I saw her again on the bus. She didn’t
say my name, but we had a big, quite in-depth talk about her kids, and her job and what I was doing
with my life. It was a nice chat. As I stepped off the bus and on to the foot path she called out “See you next time
Rebecca!”

I cringed. I turned to correct her. The doors closed and the bus pulled away. I just stood there
on the curb, feeling like twit.

 I didn’t catch the
bus as much after that. Not because I was avoiding her, but Brad and I usually drove to uni together or I bummed a
ride with his parents.   

Four years passed
by and I am now back catching the bus. Every now and again I see this bus
driver. And she always greets me with “Hi Rebecca”, or “Good Morning Becky”.

Now it is awkward. 

It has gone far too long for me to tell
her that my name is not Rebecca.  

Hasn’t it? 

If I tell her now, she will be the
one left feeling silly. Well that’s not entirely true, she won’t be the only one.

So the other morning I’m standing at the bus stop, and I see
the bus come around the corner, and this particular driver is in the driver’s
seat.  I said to myself, “just tell her”.
I said it in my head over and over “actually, funny story, my name is not Rebecca,
it’s Nicole”.  I play over the awkward
silence in my head. 

The bus stopped. 

The doors opened. 

I got on.

“Morning Becky, where are you off to love?”

“Just the station Thanks”.

I guess I will have to continue on being Becky. At least for
the twenty minute drive on occasional mornings.

''The Landlord'

The house that we rent is a self-contained flat, which is downstairs from a main house. The land-lord's beach house. This means that we have the place to ourselves most of the time, but occasionally we have to share. This is no problem for us as our land-lords are nice, easy-going, lovely people.



One thing that has been a little annoying lately is that they are having some work done on their house. This means we have a lot of tradesmen around. Mostly they are pretty good, but the early starts are staring to wear my patience thin, especially on my day off when all I want to do is sleep-in.

Luckily for us our landlords are great. One of them popped in on the builders one day and this is what I heard him say to them through the floor boards "Hey, turn that music down! I have tenants downstairs, they shouldn't have to put up with this! And you guys need to tidy this place up!" Then all you could hear was his footsteps stomping down the hall-way. If you listened really carefully you could have heard a few heads hanging in shame.

Thirty minutes later said land-lord came downstairs and apologised over and over for the mess and the loud music. He also handed us a big bottle of nice bubbles to apologise. How unnecessarily kind. Now if only he were here today to cull the loud, constant swearing and the littering of energy drink cans everywhere. But on the other hand it will be fun to hear his reaction when he checks in this afternoon. Look out sloppy builders.





I heart our land-lord.

"Sunny Days"

So as I said a few days ago, we recently went to Papamoa with Brad's Family. We stayed in a huge house (it even had an elevator). We had a wonderful time.



Some Highlights:



Swimming in the clean warm (23 degrees) Ocean, under the delicious Sunshine.

Going on a Fishing Charter and seeing a Shark!

Seeing a cruise ship up close. HUGE!

Walking up to a little look-out at Mount Maunganui Beach. ( click to enlarge)

What a great little break away.



Have you been anywhere interesting recently?

"First Year Blues"

So uni has been back in full swing for a few weeks now. The first Trimester of a University year is always the most irritating for me - and it has nothing to do with going back to study whilst the sun is still beaming. It has every thing to do with first years. And because I was stupid enough to over look one first year paper way back when, as being a major requirement, I now have to endure the First years, as a third year, at close proximity in order to complete my major.

Next year I am going to produce a pamphlet entitled "A first years guide to University life". Here are some points I am mulling over for the pamphlet.

• University life is not a fashion show, and the Campus is not your cat walk. I love shoes, but you do not need to wear 6 inch heels to class. You do not need to wear a full face of packed on make-up and red lipstick. You do not all need to shop at the same stores, buying expensive outfits - you look like some weird genetically engineered species.

• So the Government gave you $1000 and you bought yourself a MacBook. Well gee whizz, aren't you cool? The average paper costs you about $500, maybe stay off Facebook during lectures, because if you fail two of them, that laptop just cost you $2000 and six months of your academic life. 

• Afternoon classes start at ten minutes past the hour at VUW. You do not need to show up at ten to the hour and hang around/clog the walkways. If you do show up early and there is a class being held in the room you are waiting for DO NOT think that your class has started twenty minutes early. DO NOT go in to that room. You will look like an egg. And you'll feel like one too.

• Don't come to classes and chat about your new lease on life/sex/alcohol now that you're "an adult". We don't pay ridiculously high fees to here about how you got mashed on Jägerbombs over the weekend and let your room mates friend pash you in the taxi. This is CLAS104 and if you keep talking I'm going to suggest that you leave and take your chit-chat to NOBODYCARES101.

• Most external doors at uni are automatic or button release operated. Always look for the little green button. Standing at a door, trying with all your mite to force it open is embarrassing for you. It is funny to everybody else. 

• Do not ask if the notes will be put on Blackboard later. They will. 

• And finally, if you are in a tutorial with someone who seems to be a tad older than you, do not under any circumstance ask "so, like, are you, like, a Mature Student or something?" Do not ask this especially if they have just told you that they are twenty three years old. Not cool. Not. Cool.

"We're only young"

It's been a wee while since I've posted. Although there has been so much going on I haven't felt like there has been too much to share. Here's twenty quick(-ish) bits of info to get you (and me) up to speed on what's been going on.



1) I'm taking a Novel paper this Trimester. I have to read 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Emma', 'Jane Eyre', 'Great Expectations', 'Sons and Lovers' and 'Passage to India' all in a few weeks.



2) I saw my Endocrinologist recently. It was mostly positive.



3) I started a healthy eating plan  - (refer to point 2).



4) Brad turned 23 recently. We. Feel. Old. This occasion was the catalyst for many discussions which in short covered "what are we doing with our life?" and "where are we going?" topics - (refer to point 2). It also resulted in some exciting decision making for us, although with that comes a sense of disappointment. We both want everything and we want it now! We now realise that is just not possible. We will have the things in life that we want the most, but good things. take. time. and "we're only young".



5) We went on holiday with Brad's Whanau to Papamoa. It was lovely. Solo post to follow.

6) A close friend moved away for a few months. Miss her. Lots.



7) We've been seeing heaps of Movies lately. HEAPS. We wanted to host an Oscars party and place bets but we were away - (refer to point 5).



8) I tried on a $150,000 diamond ring, after an old school acquaintance and I bumped in to each other at a jewellery store. It was so big. Too big to feel real - it was actually kind of gaudy.



9) Got sick, completely out of the blue. Whammo! Down for a week with a virus.



10) I recently used my day off to clean out and organise our kitchen cupboards, my jewellery box and scrub the shower floor. I'm not a dirty person - but I am a tad untidy, so this was a weirdly enjoyable day for me.



11) A few weeks back my cousin Courtney came down from Palmerston North and we hit the dance floors of Wellington with my sister Kels and Brad a.k.a "Man enough to go out with 3 chicks". I wore my new dress which was bought with Birthday money from Brad. It originally cost $200. I got it for $40.

12) I've lost my skull candy headphones. I think I left them in Papamoa. Womp wow.



13) I relished the opportunity to bake and bake and bake so we had things to nom whilst in Papamoa. I made a Choc-Caramel Slice, Lemon Bars, Apricot & Coconut fudge slice, seventy chocolate chip cookies and a bacon and egg pie. Guess what Brad did not pack? I'll give you seventy guesses.



14) I used the sewing machine I got for my Birthday to sew some tights for my God-Daughter, Aaliah. I sewed up the wrong seam. I don't have a quick un-pick.



15) Speaking of the cherub, I looked after Aaliah a few weeks ago. I made play-dough, we played outside, played dress-up and read stories. It was an awesome day. My heart beams for her. Even though she wouldn't sleep.

16) Following Brad's Birthday and a decent sale at work our house has a few new gadgets. Brad got a bluetooth earpiece from me for his Birthday and he got Xbox Kinect from his parents. Kinect is crazy cool. Even as I write this I can hear him bounding about in the lounge. We also are the proud owners of a new webcam. Skype ahoy!



17) We are trying to sell the car. Trying and trying, but no one is buying.



18) My song addiction has a few new titles in it's rotation. I am hooked on Lady Gaga's 'Born this way', despite it's plagiarism similarities with Madonna's 'Express yourself' (note the tune, the dance-moves and the tuxedo costume) I am also having delayed affections for this New Zealand tune.












19) After being sick (refer to point 9) I have been put back on my Asthma preventative inhaler, which I take through a spacer. We have dubbed this the 'Asthma Bong' as it looks fairly suspicious.



20) We have many events coming up including, a Fiftieth Birthday, a 60's themed 30th party (for two people, thus the 60's theme), a new baby of a work mates to meet and an awesome time hanging out with my friend Hannie. I am very excited about these. Hopefully with all this happening I will manage to blog on a more regular basis and to actually comment on the amazing blogs that I've been rush-reading as of late.