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Post #60: HELP! Writer Needs a New Look!

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Post #60: HELP! Writer Needs a New look!

It all started out innocently: I wanted a photo of me to put on my ‘about’ page. That, and to have a good one at the ready for the news networks (at least one photo without the trifecta of double chins, adult acne and sweat patches) should anything happen to me. And ladies, you know exactly where this is heading…

HOLYFUCKINGPSYCHOMELTDOWN. I saw photographs of me.

I don’t fear bad photos. I just don’t like them. Some people are blessed with photogenicity — yes, that’s a word. They are able to ‘find the light’, ‘smile with their eyes’, and end up with great photos. I, however, am not one of those people. And having gone through every single photo that I could possibly draw from in the last four years, I am left dissatisfied. With nothing that I can even crop to make it look better. Le sigh!

But in the spirit of being open and honest about things, the big fear is not that I don’t have a pretentiously arty photo of myself on my blog. It’s more that I won’t exist in history. I don’t mean some big, world-changing, deeply effectual history of any means or consequence, but just that there simply won’t be any documentation that I did, in fact, exist. I’m always behind the camera, and rarely out front. I document my life and the lives of others from the outside. But what about the inside?

The problem with being comfortable behind the camera is that when you do finally get a shot to be immortalized as you exist in this moment of time, your 15-year-old awkward and goofy self appears, resulting in the type of photos in Exhibit 1. A LOT.

Exhibit 1.

So where is the mature, self-confident woman I am supposed to be now I’ve been welcomed into the 30s club? She appears seldomly, mostly  at work and professional functions (when I can keep my mouth shut so as not to give the game away), but that side of me that I “should” have perfected by now simply doesn’t exist. It’s just daggy old me playing dress ups in suits. On occasion, I feel powerful, confident, ready to tackle the world in a suit. But mostly, I just feel like a fraud when I wear them. What about you?

As I was sorting through all my photos and cringing, I came across one when the Canadian and I were on one of our gourmet eat-fests at the Ferry Building. And it dawned on me: my jeans/t-shirt/sneakers combination with a baseball cap makes me look just like Squints from the Sandlot Kids (and on a side note, did you know that here in the US, the movie was only called the Sandlot? Weird how movies end up with a different title in Australia…).

Jeans, sneakers and t-shirts are so… me. But it gets a little repetitive  — I can’t remember the last time I dressed up. Sometimes, a girl just wants to rock it. Rock it like Wendy Peffercorn, not Squints!

Squints v Me

HELP! This writer need as makeover! With minimal monetary outlay, and instant body improvement.
Can you help?

***

This is the sixtieth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012.
Three times a week for an entire year, I will be writing about life and travel and random subjects . The stipulation: it must be 250 words (or more), and positive in tone. If you would like to suggest topics for me to write about, please email me at TheRebeccaProject [at] gmail [dot] com.

Post #59: International Rules

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Post #59: International Rules

I was following along with travel writer Spencer Spellman’s live conversation on Twitter about Sport and Travel the other day, and he started by asking:

Now to Q1: What lengths would you go to in order to see a sporting event? #expchat

I didn’t get an opportunity to participate in the conversation itself because I was at work, but the farthest I have ever travelled for a sporting match was more than halfway across the world. In 2006 I flew from Sydney to Galway, Ireland, to watch the Australians take on the Irish in one of the most interesting, skilful and captivating sports ever created: International Rules.

The game of International Rules is a hybrid game, combining aspects of Australian Rules Football with Gaelic Football. And neither of them are anything like soccer. Each team fields 15 players on the pitch at one time like Gaelic footy, but they’re allowed to tackle between the shoulders and knees as in Aussie Rules. A ‘goal’ is scored when the ball is kicked past the keeper into the net for 6 points, an ‘over’ is when the ball is kicked over the crossbar and between the two big sticks for 3 points. And as in Aussie Rules, a ‘behind’ is scored when a player kicks the ball between the large post and the small post for 1 point. It all culminates in odd-looking scores like 1.12.6 (48) to 1.9.7 (40). My favourite of all the signals by the umpires is for the over: they raise their arm overhead, in a manner that is more reminiscent of ballet than of football.

International Rules: Speed, agility, skill.

[Source: Zimbio]

In Aussie Rules there’s plenty of physicality with players deliberately knocking into each other at all stages of the game. This ‘argy bargy’ is foreign to GAA players, and doesn’t fall into line with their fair play ethos in which the GAA games are played. Yet some argue the Gaelic players have the advantage because International Rules uses the round Gaelic Football and the rectangular GAA pitch. Nevertheless, I think it’s a great hybrid game that provides a fast-paced and entertaining spectacle.

Getting physical before the game has even begun.

[Source: The Australian]

The biggest divide was in the sheer size of the players out on the pitch: the Aussies are professionals, the Irish proudly amateurs. Players from Australian Football League (AFL) exited the provincial dressing rooms at Pearse Stadium, oiled up like Roman gladiators preparing for battle. The Aussies, their deep tans from a lifetime playing outdoors in the harsh Australian sun, towered over their Irish opposites. The Irish were pasty white and runty in comparison, with the rabbit-like speed their saving grace. As they lined up for the bounce to start the game, it became obvious that it really was David v Goliath.

Galway, a small city of about 100,000 on the west coast of Ireland, was proud to be hosting the first International Rules Test to be played under lights. Most of the 30,000-odd fans had enjoyed a few beverages at pubs on Shop Street, before walking over to Salthill in one band of multi-coloured liveliness. We Australians were well and truly outnumbered in the stands at Pearse Stadium, but it didn’t matter. The atmosphere was electric.  There were about 50 of us along the sidelines, decked out in  bright yellow, belting out the anthem with a vigour and passion I’d never felt before. I was a little more emotional than I’d anticipated. We were all so far from home and enjoying something far bigger than ourselves.

Barry Hall doing his utmost to destroy relations between Australia and Ireland.

[Source: The Journal]

It was only bettered a week later when the teams played in front of a sell-out crowd at the home of GAA — Croke Park in Dublin. The Irish are very protective of the GAA and their jewel of a stadium. At the time, International Rules was the only non-indigenous game permitted to play there. That was until the following year when the GAA gave an exemption to the IRFU to use Croke during the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road. So to watch our boys playing on the hallowed turf of Gaelic sports was phenomenal. They ended up winning the second Test, as well as the series on aggregate.

The hybrid game has a “quirky charm” as writer Michael Filosi put it, and he’s spot on:

Plenty of people find its peculiarities jarring on their sporting palate, but to many these oddities make it all the more appealing.

Fans of the hybrid game admire its quirky charm, and are happy to defend its oddball nature to its detractors. Sure, it might not be to everyone’s sporting taste, but like a bag of jellybeans with no black ones, the Australian sporting calendar wouldn’t be the same without it.
— Michael Filosi, The Roar

Such a shame it’s only played twice a year…

“Hill 16 is Dublin only!”

After the violence and the number of injuries sustained by the Irish during the two-game series in 2006 (as well as the inappropriate behaviour by Brendan Fevola in Galway, and umpire Darren Goldspink being a general knobjockey), the 2007 Tests were cancelled. Understanding that these blokes had to front up for work on Monday with broken limbs and severe concussion put it into perspective: the ‘rivalry’ had gotten out of hand. For a while, I thought I’d been in the stands at the last games of IR ever, but thankfully the GAA and the AFL agreed on rule changes in the lead up to the 2008 series. The show must go on.

I bonded with friends and strangers over a game only played twice a year. To be there in the stands, in a foreign country, cheering on your compatriots is a great experience. I met a bunch of great people, both from home and abroad (like Miss Alice, Brad, Carmel and Paul), and enjoyed great adventures around Ireland in between the Tests with these people.

So grab the opportunity to follow your sporting teams around the world. It is guaranteed to be the adventure of a lifetime.

My longest-serving mate, Craig, and yours truly enjoying a pint of Guinness at the Guinness Factory before the second test in Dublin, 2006.

Post #58: Cafe Culture

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Post #58: Cafe Culture

Today I went to a meeting in a local coffee shop. At 10:30am. There were plenty of people there. And I loved it. I loved being surrounded by the sounds of the expensive Italian coffee machine, the well-chosen music, the sunlight streaming through the windows to warm my skin. I loved the freedom of it, and for a brief moment I felt a pang for amount of (perceived) autonomy these cafe-types have.

I want to be meeting interesting people in a coffee shop in the middle of the day.
Actually, I want to be the interesting person that people like me come to the coffee shop to visit!

It’s not really about the coffee. Or the fact that they’re off-site during business hours. It’s about the freedom to make my own rules when it comes to work, to do the work I want to do and to decide when and where I do it. I want to live the freelance life. I want to be location independent.

This can be my life, should I want it to be. I can meet interesting people in independently owned cafes. I can collaborate with said interestings over organic, free trade milky goodness. In just the same way as I bought the original airplane ticket in 2006, I can be that person. I just have to do something to make it a reality.

There’s one theme that recurs throughout my life, and it’s fear. I can list for you all of the reasons why I should not quit my job and go into business for myself. Fear dictates this list. But life is too short to sit at a coffee table and envy those who can come here whenever they please. Businesses succeed or fail. Jobs come and go. The seasons change. Life will still move on. Even if I fail at striking out on my own — so what? Money comes and goes. I don’t have a 50 year mortgage, or kids, or any real excuse to not go for it. And as long as I have tried my hardest to make it work, I can have no regrets.

Some of my nearest and dearest believe I am throwing away all I have worked for (a stable county job with benefits, an apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the world,  professional achievement) to settle for a life where it’s entirely feasible I could not make a cent. I know they’re looking out for me, and I appreciate the balance they provide in making me think through big decisions. But I don’t want to be a sour old woman wondering why I never jumped at the opportunity to live in Europe for a year, or learn to sail, or make the job of my dreams.

I’m trying to pack in as much as I can to make this life an amazing life, one in which I laugh in the face of fear and chase my dreams.
What about you?

About the blog

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For years, I rode the train home from my crappy jobs in the city, spending the 40 minute journey reading travel memoirs and Lonely Planet guide books. Through these books I escaped to exotic locales, ate unusual food, and had exciting adventures in countries unseen. I aspired to be as intrepid as the heroes and heroines on those pages, but in real life.

The view from my (old) train station.

I had emerged from a two-year-long malaise intensely dissatisfied with the direction my life, but I knew what I had to do: travel. I had no idea what I would find being out on the road, but just knew I had to explore it in the flesh as opposed to in my mind. So in 2006, and like many intrepid Australians before me, I packed my bags in search of a lifetime of adventure. I believed that I, too, could live the dream.

After a brief existential crisis awakening (how do you fit your entire life in one bag?), I started the adventure with a year in the Republic of Ireland. And it was on a couch in the city of Galway, that my life changed unexpectedly: I met my husband, the American. A charmed occurrence. Since the early days on the west coast of Ireland, we have lived in Dublin (Ireland), Melbourne and Sydney (Australia), Dunedin (NZ), and now in San Francisco. Our adventures in travel have taken us through Western and Eastern Europe, the UK and British Isles, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and the United States. The latter has been our longest stop thus far, arranging my permanent residency and trying to figure out what we want to do with our lives.

Ah, San Francisco. You are beautiful (when the fog clears).

I started this blog, The Rebecca Project, shortly after I arrived in San Francisco in 2009. It was a strange time in my life: I was not allowed to work here in the US until my work permit was approved, and had never experienced an extended period without a job. Plus, it took some time to adjust to some of the more outspoken and brash aspects of Americans. My goal for the blog was simple: to get me writing. I’ve always been a dedicated journal writer, but I wanted something else. And I wanted to chronicle this new, strange life as an expat trying to find my feet in a different country.

In the beginning, The Rebecca Project blog was out rather unfocused as I tried to find my footing in the blogosphere. It has developed into a vehicle for me to explore themes of travel, personal development, friendship, adventure, memory, imagination, inspiration, philosophy, as well as my thoughts and opinions on various things. Life is a mixed bag, and I thought it fitting that The Rebecca project reflects that.

Budapest, Hungary.

Travel is enlightening

I have never once regretted my decision to travel. Even as I was scratching the welts from bedbugs in Laos, or when I was lost and alone late at night in Ljubljana, or fighting hypothermia after stepping in a slushpuddle in New York. It’s all an experience. Travel has allowed me to fully stretch my metaphorical wings. And for a while now, I’ve been feeling the itch return to my travelling feet.

Travel has provided me with so many more possibilities than I dreamed sitting on the ‘all stations to East Hills’ train. I like the person I am when I travel: more carefree, open and embracing. I love meeting new people, and hearing their stories. Finding a common thread between different people and their experiences, and the themes and interests of their lives is fascinating to me. I want to meet people who are like me, and those who are not like me at all. I collect these stories the way a six-year-old collects seashells. More than anything, I want to be a storyteller.

But there is a downside to embracing the wandering life. You miss out on a lot of things, particularly a lot of the joy living life with your family and friends. Weddings, birthdays, babies, toasting promotions, Christmas, and the other milestones. As you get older, these events take on greater significance. Much of the disconnection I have felt when I’m not at ‘home’ has been alleviated by one improvement in technology: Skype. I am eternally grateful for that.

Koh Phi Phi, Thailand.

Sense of purpose

For years, I’ve been in search of the place where I fit. Some people know instinctively where they fit, but that’s never been the case for me.  But recently I looked at it from a different angle: pieces of me can fit anywhere and everywhere. Now I look for places and moments that excite and inspire me, that fit to my shape.

As the tagline on the blog says, this is a life in progress. I’m not always going to get things right, and that’s okay. I’m just so glad that you’re along to share the ride with me.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

Post #57: An Open Letter to Those on the East Side

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Post #57: An Open Letter to Those on the East Side.

Dear friends and family on the East Side,

It’s not you, it’s me.

I live in a completely different city. Life is very different over here, and to tell you the truth, I prefer it. The actual distance may only be a few miles, but it may as well be light years.

There’s a grittiness, a weathering of the soul you experience over here. San Franciscans, native or otherwise, weather just as the trees along the coast twist and turn and age. Each of them looks different, and I think that reflects in the people who live here. We identify with each other as San Franciscans, yet we’re not homogenous by any stretch of the imagination.

The gnarled, twisted trees you find around San Francisco.

[Source: Manny Santiago/Heso Magazine]

I live in The City, and have no need for a car, which is phenomenal in this car-centric nation. Many of us walk, cycle, rollerblade, run and vespa around town. We have majestic bridges rising above the bay, iconic architecture, a stunning ballpark. We have Baker Beach and Ocean Beach, the Presidio and Golden Gate Park. World glass golf courses such as the Olympic Club and Harding Park. We have great restaurants, mainstream and indie clothing stores, and a whole host of gourmet food trucks. We have  organic and free range and gluten-free. We have Pride and a city-wide committment to the arts. Each neighborhood has its own vibe, its own ‘people’. And the temperature is mostly 62 degrees each day. It’s a little piece of paradise on the tip of a peninsula.

I know of people who have not left The City in years. Literally. It has everything you need! And never leaving The City is a perfectly acceptable way of living. As Rudyard Kipling said, “San Francisco has only one drawback – ’tis hard to leave.”

The simple fact is that I like it over here. Life is varied and interesting. I have everything I need, right here in San Francisco.

So maybe it is you. And I think it’s time you paid me a visit over on the West Side.

Heart,

me

“I’ve been to all the great cities of the world,” he said, “and not one of them has what this one has – and I’m not talking about hills or water. I mean light – fantastic changes of light. I’ve never seen a city move so fast or so often from gray to white to blue to pink to gold and then back again, and sometimes all at the same time. Wherever you turn there seems to be a new shade in a new connotation – a violet hill, a yellow street or a green house turning orange right before your eyes.” — From Herb Caen, ‘A Sense of Wonder’,  SF Chronicle

Post #56: Decisions, Decisions…

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Post #56: Decisions, Decisions…

I’ve always had difficulty in making decisions, half paralysed by the prospect of making the wrong choice. So I would avoid the difficult conversations that come with big decisions, and avoid making a choice completely. Then I wouldn’t fail, because I wouldn’t be making the wrong choice. But no decision is still a decision to accept the status quo (and generally stay miserable). But I am not prepared to remain miserable forever. So now I try to make decisions that improve my life.

The happiness flowchart.

[Source: Pinterest]

I have this image on my wall in a spot I see multiple times each day. It’s such a simple flowchart and a great reminder that you are what stands in your own way of happiness. Are you miserable? Do something about it!  Actively doing something is better than nothing. And so what if you don’t like the outcome. Make another decision to change it! Just keep moving forward.

Recently, there has a been a spate of friends making big life decisions, and you can’t get any bigger than starting a family. A friend told me the happy news the other day that he and his lovely wife were expecting their first child.  I was genuinely thrilled. It’s such an exciting time for them — and he was as giddy as a schoolgirl. It was wonderful to see him that involved and animated about the whole experience. That’s how babies should be welcomed into this world: wanted and loved.

Making babies is probably the most major life decision you could make. Along the road of life, there’s little notches in time that remind you to take stock and reevaluate things.  And when I hear of an event such as this, it’s only natural to turn inward:

What about me? Do I feel anything, aside from excitement for the happy couple? Perhaps a twinge of envy?

In something as complicated as deciphering my need/want to have children, a twinge of envy would be worth exploring in itself. But there was none. I am genuinely happy with my choice, and our choice to not have children. But that being said, my life is still lacking that je ne sais quoi: and I think it’s adventure.

No choice? It doesn’t matter where you’ll end up

[Source: Pinterest]

By taking a peek at my Life List, I can honestly say none of it revolves around caring and nurturing a family of my own. And that’s okay. My Life List is a reflection of what I want to achieve in my lifetime. And it’s constantly being updated and revised so that it fits with who I am as a person.  Jumping off a waterfall? Maybe that won’t always be on my list (the billabong scene from Japanese Story scared the bejesus out of me!). But that does not make me wish anything less than the best for my friend, nor does it completely rule out having the option, in the future, of changing my mind.

Life happens, whether you make the decisions or not. So that’s when you do something: make a smart, informed decision that works for you. Not every decision is going to be right, but the way I like to see it is that your decision can never be wrong, because it was the best decision for you at that moment. You’ve just got to get on with life and tackle the next decision with all the stored knowledge from previous ones.