Wednesday 24 November 2010

An update

Location: My Apartment, Arncliffe, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Hi all, for those that made it here from my recent 'reach out' email - welcome! Here's a quick re-cap on your long lost friend / relative:

Be warned - I'm going back nearly 10 years here!
  • I'm renovating a small apartment I bought 2 years ago in Arncliffe (South Sydney, about 10km from the CBD and near Brighton Le Sands). Renovations consist of sanding and varnishing the parquetry timber floors and building a new kitchen. Progress is slow. I'm pretty disorganised and tend to go down the beach on nice days.
  • I'm currently working for the PricewaterhouseCoopers (an accounting form) Sustainability & Climate Change team. Its an awesome job, mostly because it is with a kick-arse team but also because it is one of those rare jobs that provides you with a sense, however fleeting, that you are doing something worthwhile. Basically, we help business measure, mitigate and pursue risks or opportunities as a result of sustainability and climate change. Most of my focus is on the financial services industry and helping them incorporate these risks into investment valuation and also in providing assurance services over greenhouse gas emissions.
  • This weekend I'm aprticipating in the 'Human Race' which is a fund-raiser for a charity called Palmer projects. They are providing much needed assistance to impoverished people in Australia, Sri Lanka, cambodia and Laos. Read about the causes and the race here and you can donate here.
  • Still playing cricket but more socially these days with Northbridge Cricekt Club. Last year I captained a losing side in the A Grade grand final in our first season back in A Grade after nearly a decade in lower grades. Great Club and a good way to get to know people in a new city.
  • I finished uni (B.Bus with Hon) back in 2006. Honours and 6 months on exchange in Canada were the high-lights. This blog was started on that exchange so you can read all about it here.Also played cricekt with Dad over in the UK in the norther hemisphere summer of 2005, pictures also on this blog.
  • After uni I spent nearly 3 years earning my CA. Quite possibly a waste of time.
  • Best holidays since starting work have been Fraser Island, New Zealand, and Vietnam. 
  • Best holidays while at uni was the trip up the east coast of Australia to Cairns and the PNG and the kokoda Track and also the cricket in the UK followed by exchange in Canada (central & west coast only) and a short stay in Fiji.
  • I bought a motorbike last year and am now planning on taking it over-seas for a year. Not sure exactly where I'm going but ideally I'd like to make it to Europe. I'll be starting my years holiday in roughly March 2011 with a 3 month stint volunteering in Micro-Finance in Timor Leste, then - who knows!
Ok, thanks for re-connecting. Now you are caught up on all the past stuff, wouldn't it be easier if we stayed in touch on a regular basis?

Friday 19 November 2010

Its a verb!

Thanks to Stephen Covey whose following words kick started my thoughts

"Love is a verb. Love the feeling is a fruit of love the verb."
To love is to serve, sacrafice, listen, understand, empathize, appreciate, affirm and recognise.
To feel loved is to have loved and to act with the feeling of love.

I acted to serve, blindly and without regard for the problems that I cause
Now, I have listened and understand your fear, anguish, conflict and concern
Ask me but once and I will sacrafice this feeling that I cherish most.
I will appreciate only from afar that attitude of yours, that is a beacon in the dark.
I will remove myself from your path and recognise your progress from the shadows,
I will not be there to affirm the love you give, for I will know then, it is not your love I feel within.

Ask me but once and I will gladly sacrafice this feeling that I cherish most.
For it will be my feeling and needs only what you ask, to be free
But I genuinely thank thee, for helping find it, within me.