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Post #15: Currently Listening to — KDFC

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Welcome to the fifteenth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012.
 Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. 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 #15: Currently Listening To -- KDFC

I love my job and the million things I have the opportunity to do each day, and as I discussed the other day, it’s just the mornings that ruin me. My office cubicle is rather large, with a great workstation with plenty of surface area. It’s climate controlled, with great neighbors like Rebecca T. I am rarely lacking for conversation, food or overheard ‘crazy’. And the coolest thing? I have my very own escape hatch.

If there’s one thing that really improves my productivity, it’s the Bay Area’s own classical KDFC. I have been listening to the station since I moved here permanently in 2009, and it’s a breath of fresh air. Following their frequency being sold last year, KDFC is now “listener supported”, and therefore, ad-free (which makes it so much better!).

The familiar voices stuck with the station, and I enjoy having Hoyt kicking off my incredibly early 8am starts, and try to coincide my breakfast with his ‘Mozart in the Morning’ segment at 9am. Dianne Nikolini ushers in the late morning with her beautiful voice and interesting tidbits she throws in. I love hearing her pronounce some of the names of the works she plays: and she does it without being at all pretentious, which is quite hard to do when you’re trying to say things in French.

Late afternoons are spent in a frenzy of activity with Ray White (not the realtor), and seeing what he pulls out for the Afternoon Out-of-School Requests. And nights like this, I enjoy nothing more than sitting down on the couch to write whilst the San Francisco Symphony takes me somewhere unexpected.

KDFC is the only radio station I listen to, and I’d like to credit my parents for instilling a love of classical music. They encouraged an appreciation of the arts by taking us to museums and concerts and recitals as children, and this continued this well on into adulthood. I mostly detested it as a kid, but that had more to do with being made to wear a dress than disliking the activity. Being afforded the opportunity for gallery previews and member evenings (with their free canapes and champagne) is something that I really loved being able to do with my parents as an adult. The Art Gallery of NSW is one of my favourite places and they certainly know how to put on fabulous member evenings. And it’s something I have really missed since relocating to the other side of the world.

KDFC makes my heart swell when I hear some of my favourite works by Tchaikovsky or Saint-Saëns. I’d love to see the SF Symphony in concert, with the enigmatic director and conductor, Michael Tilson-Thomas, or the renowned pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, or violinist Itzhak Perlman. That’s going on my Life List.

Post #14: Learning a Second Language

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Welcome to the fourteenth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012.
 Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. The stipulation: it must be 250 words (or more), and positive in tone.
Thanks to Rai for today’s topic. If you would like to suggest topics for me to write about, please email me at TheRebeccaProject [at] gmail [dot] com.

Post #14: Learning a Second Language

Taking language classes is difficult. I have had about a month off since my last class ended and already, I feel as though I’m starting right back at the beginning. Ah, shade. I find that I’m just not able to retain the words as easily as I used to. Perhaps this is what they mean about getting old…

But with the difficulty comes reward. It’s rewarding to learn new things, meet new people and string it all together. Eventually, I want to be able to converse in German. Why? Just cos. Learning another language and being bilingual is something that I have always wanted for myself.

I enjoy the structure, the sounds I am able to make. I get a real kick out of seeing German word constructions and in seeing what they call things, like die Fledermaus (the literal translation is a flying mouse → a bat). That’s just cool.

One of my favourite things when I meet people who speak other languages is to find out what their animals say: phonetically, English dogs say “woof!”, but German dogs say “Vof!” (and dear friends of mine who actually know how to speak German – please correct me if I am wrong!). It’s the small things like that I find interesting, and I think by being inquisitive, you gain so much. Plus, you look at things with a fresh (and different) perspective.

Do you speak a second language?
Do you have any tips you use to retain the information?

Post #13: Tennis

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Welcome to the thirteenth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012.
 Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. 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 #13: Tennis ("C'mon Balboa!")

Love him or hate him (perhaps even in the same moment), Lleyton Hewitt is getting it done at the Australian Open. And I think it’s great to see.

With the tennis courts of metropolitan Australia having been snapped up and turned in to townhouses during the housing boom of the 1990s, I’m surprised we even have any tennis players flying the red, white and blue. But apparently, we have at least one court left because we have a newbie in Bernard Tomic. He’s exciting, a little brash. He might be as (ahem) poorly behaved as Andy Roddick or Andy Murray, but at the moment, that’s irrelevant.

The fate of the nation rests on our sportsmen and women, and Australia prides itself on being ultra competitive. Whether we are actually or not, that’s not the issue. We have this desire to show the world what we can do, and there’s nothing Aussie fans love more than cheering for one of our own.

As I type, (Aussie) Kim Clijsters is fighting for her place in the quarters against Li Na and she’s just rolled her ankle, Lley Lley won a little earlier and Tomic faces the Fed in a few hours. It’s an exciting time to be watching the tennis, and the weather looks amazing: warm, slightly breezy, with sun shining over Melbourne Park. One of these years, I hope to coincide my visit home with the Open.

I really enjoy watching Federer: he’s talented, humble, and consistent. A real statesman of the game. But tonight, I want to see the 19-year-old from Queensland progress. We have an opportunity, however slight, to entertain an all-Aussie final. Lley Lley and Tomic. Can you imagine? What a great advertisement for Australian tennis, and what a great way to get kids off the couch and out in the sunshine, emulating their new heroes.

I am not prepared to give up. I believe Australia will again be a nation of sporting greats, and it all starts here. Tonight.

C’mon Balboa!

Post #12: Jeopardy!

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Welcome to the twelfth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012.
 Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. The stipulation: it must be 250 words (or more), and positive in tone.
Kudos to Maia for the suggestion. If you would like to suggest topics for me to write about, please email me at TheRebeccaProject [at] gmail [dot] com.

Post #12: Jeopardy!

Whilst every woman and her dog is in Salt Lake City for the Alt Summit, I “opted” to further a goal on my Life List: to be a contestant on Jeopardy.

I have been watching Jeopardy for years, and I really get a kick out of just having a crack at it. So when I heard the yearly Jeopardy Online Test was rolling around, I set reminders. I set alarms for the reminders. I set email pop-ups. I was committed to the cause.

Alex joins us each night for dinner each night and it’s the only program we watch religiously. So the opportunity to be here and logged on to potentially be part of it, was kind of a big deal for me. Maybe even more exciting than being able to vote in Eurovision…

Last night, I logged in with a little over half an hour before the start of the test.

I enjoy critiquing the stories and tales regaled by the contestants on the game show. Women are more likely to talk about the lives of their children more than themselves, and men only talk about themselves. I love watching a returning champion bit of a spark, some witty sense of humour; dislike others who are indecisive.

So for the sake of this exercise, here’s what I would do if I received the call up:

  • I’m woeful at mythology and Bible stuff (and they always talk about Rebecca – I really don’t know anything about her), and really need to brush up on my US history. American presidents (go for the duplicates!) need some polish, but I’m great at world history, things oceanic and the randomness of potpourri. And I would have to claim expert status on anything Australian (bonus points for pronunciation?).
  • I’d practice writing my name, and have at least a few different versions up my sleeve (ala much like Ken Jennings).
  • I’d have to practice my ten second wacky story. Ten seconds. Short and sweet. Short and sweet, Bec.
  • Glasses or no contacts. The jury’s still out. But sneakers are a given.
  •  I will start all sentences from here on in with “WHAT IS!” “ WHO IS!”

I’m in it to win it!


Post #11: Belonging

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Welcome to the eleventh post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012.
Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. 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 #11: Belonging

A friend at work surprised me with big gift last week. It was her way of saying thank you for helping her and her new Aussie husband with their immigration paperwork. And it was big! And heavy! I had thought myself immune to the giddy joy of unexpected gifts, but thankfully not! My friend had aced it: a bottle of red, some really hard-to-find Heinz beans and something I didn’t even know I was dying for: a jaffle maker (or as we always called it, a ‘toasted cheese sandwich maker’).

At once, I could taste the toasted cheese sandwich-y goodness of my childhood. Scalding my mouth on tinned spaghetti jaffles. Easy Friday night dinners with the Guthries while Mum and Aunty Robyn shared a few glasses. I had forgotten how much I miss my toasted cheese sandwiches!

I feel like so much of my writing lately has been about memory and nostalgia, but it’s unfamiliar territory I find myself in. I am Australian, but I don’t live there. I live in the US, but I’m not American. The best way to describe it is that I belong to neither of these places, and both. At the same time. I have been away from home (the Australian one) for so long, that my life and memory of my life there is starting to resemble the muted colors of my parents’ photo albums from the 1970s, with the added gloss of distance and a rose tint. And when it comes to smells, or unexpected memories, they’re brighter than ever.

Such is the life of an expat

I miss my family to bits, and get a little teary about being so far from them more than I let on. But this is the life I have chosen, and I know they understand why I’m not there to share birthdays, anniversaries and real life with them.

I love being here, in an environment that is supportive and embraced by a culture that encourages innovation and fosters the entrepreneurial spirit. People here cheer “Good for you!” at every turn, and that’s exactly what I needed. But whilst I am constantly falling in love with the city and its architecture, I don’t feel I really belong here. But I don’t belong in Australia, either. Or perhaps, my sense of belonging here has a completely different frame of reference, and I’m yet to really explore it. Who knows. It’s not necessarily a negative thing, just something that has become a little more apparent lately.

One of the most interesting blogs I’m stumbled upon lately, is from a husband and wife powerhouse from Geelong Sydney. I have been reading Grantourismo for months and oogling over all the amazing places they have visited, but also how they’ve made it their life and living. In a recent post, Lara discusses that instead of feeling like she doesn’t belong anywhere, she actually feels as though she belongs everywhere. It’s a great way to look at it. I have to agree with one of the commenters, that I only started feeling like myself when I was out and about in the world, meeting people, engaging that part of me that yearned for something… different. I wonder if I will ever get to a stage where I can feel at home everywhere.

But I am fortunate to have some really great friends here. And connecting with other expats here has been enormously helpful, because there’s other people close by who understand the challenges of living life out of your comfort zone. And there is general consensus amongst the female Commonwealth expat population here that American tampons are inferior in every way. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Post #10: Sleep

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Welcome to the tenth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012.
Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. 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 #10: Sleep

Sleep has rarely come easy for me, and now, as tonight’s deadline for bed has been and gone, I’m still here writing. Each night, I try every thing under the sun to not acknowledge my bedtime. But what part of this is because my body clock tells me we have hours before I’ll naturally be inclined to sleep, and what part of this is my 6-year-old inner self not wanting to be hemmed in by “boring nonsense” like a responsible bedtime?

To be the very best I can be, my body requires sleep. I know that, but I just don’t want to sleep. There’s plenty more interesting things I’d rather be doing than looking at my eyelids.

At my work, there’s little flexibility in terms of time. My core hours are roughly 8am – 5:30pm, and that’s just the way the world works. Unfortunately, those hours are not conducive to my circadian rhythm. I am a ‘B’ person, meaning that I naturally rise late, but also work late. This rhythm naturally puts me to sleep at about 3am and wakes me up at 10am-ish. I’m not the only person to operate in an ‘A’ world, but I cannot continue to hit the hay at 2am and expect to be operating on all cylinders at 7. I am never truly switched on until an hour before lunch.

So if I were to start knuckling down and turning the lights off at a reasonable time (one I have associated with the elderly), I could start waking up more refreshed, even on an A schedule. It could improve my memory and reduce the foggy mind, and even be more emotionally balanced. Sleep is the time when your body recharges and repairs itself, so I imagine that getting a full night’s sleep could help my body in ways that are not necessarily obvious, such as physical health, and longevity.

I imagine that by making 8-hours sleep a priority in 2012 won’t affect my productivity heatmap, but it may just leave me with smaller bags under my eyes than Keith Richards. Fingers crossed. It’ll just have to start tomorrow…