Cute, right? :)

When I say I’m moving to London, one of the few things that get mentioned is how AWESOME the public transport is. How waiting three minutes seems ridiculous. And that blows my mind a little, because in Auckland, the public transport is horrid. If your wait is a mere half hour, you should be happy.

Well, I have this friend, Busta. And he wasn’t so happy about the longer than half hour wait. Unfortunately Busta doesn’t have a blog on which to post his Open Letter, so I’m posting it here. Oh Maxx, I really wish your service wasn’t so dismal.

Dear Maxx customer service,

I’m currently sitting opposite the Glenfield Mall at stop B waiting for the Ritchies bus 131, scheduled to get here at 6:43pm. The time is now 7:21pm and still no bus. I know I didnt miss it since I’ve been waiting here after just missing the 131 bus that got here at 6:18pm, after madly flailing for the bus driver to pick me up. He didn’t.

I know the bus exists since both your website, and the tagged sign, with a faint whiff of urine next to me, both say so. So I’m wondering why I’m still sitting on this hard, sticky bench, rather than the comfort of one of the hard, sticky seats on one of your buses.

At this point I would like to express my appreciation of you updating your website with many pretty pictures. It certainly makes searching for imaginary bus routes much more satisfying, and I never liked the functionality of being able to see the map of the route anyway.

Is it your policy to pull numbers out of your head, and hope by some miracle that a bus with that exact number turns up, at the right stop at the right time? By my calculations, the chances of that happening are the same as if a leprechaun came and danced a jig infront of me right now, and then kicked me in the nuts for good measure, which I must say, would be a lot more fun than what I’m currently doing, as at least then I could say that I’ve been kicked in the nuts by a leprechaun.

If, in the future, you could provide something close to the service you promise I would be in your debt and may even share with you my prized black jellybean collection. My wife has just arrived. I called her and explained I’m trapped in some corner of hell reserved for waiting for public transport, and being called by a telemarketer while a really good episode of Shortland Street is on. I think I’ll stick with relying on her at the moment, because unlike Maxx, she actually picks me up when she says she will.

Final count, 7:38, no bus.

Melissa, from themelodramatic.net wrote a post about her sister-in-laws new experience with blogging. Her sister in law had written a post about it, about her experience with blogging. Why people do it, and the kind of people that do. I read that post, and I understood what she was trying to say. And then I wrote a comment that might as well have been a novel with it’s own ISBN or something.

Worse, days after I wrote that comment, I was still thinking about it. About why I blogged, why I wrote a novel to explain that for me, the blogosphere wasn’t filled with weird creepy people, or airheads that just want to talk about their diets or broken toes. That the blogosphere wasn’t filled with complete strangers. I thought about how I didn’t see myself as the person she’d described as a ‘blogger’. I thought about the bloggers I knew and how I didn’t see them in that cast either.

I thought about the people that I knew that blogged, and that were part of that scene, and about the people I knew that weren’t.

I thought about how The Ex hated that I blogged. He hated that after we broke up I was open to the entire world how I felt about things. How I felt about what happened between us. And he got shitty and said I was too open with our relationship. I think that he’d forgotten that for the whole three years we were together I didn’t blog openly about us. He was very rarely mentioned on rarg. And when we broke up? I blogged what I was feeling, openly, honestly. That’s not to say that I was nasty, and filled my blog with explicit hate posts or whatever. I never let the dirty details out. I was looking for support from the blogosphere, not starting a hate campaign. I remember in one of our discussions I tried to explain the difference, and he interrupted with “But this what you DO! This is WHO YOU ARE!”

And I was a little dumbfounded. Blogging is what I do? Blogging is who I am?

I held my tongue, at the time. But what I wanted to do was shake my head, and point out that he didn’t understand. And I think that alot of people don’t understand why people blog. Why casting a person into the ‘blogger’ sterotype, as if that is all they are, all they do, isn’t quite how it goes.

I do blog. And as such, I am a blogger. But I am so much more than that. A multi-faceted person of which blogging is only one side.

And I thought about why I do it.

I blog because I’d like a record of my life as I’m living it, to remember what I was doing, what I was feeling, who I was. I blog to better understand what I’m feeling, what I know, what I think, to type it out and to clarify. I blog to share what I know, and what I’ve learnt. I blog because I want to connect with people, and the blogosphere is filled with amazing, amazing people to connect with.

People who care, and can help. People who cheer you on and offer encouragement and commiseration when you’re down. Is a friendship through comments, tweets and emails any less a friendship than one you might have in real life? I don’t think so. I got an email from Sarah from becomingsarah.com the other day. An email that made me cry and feel all warm and fuzzy and understood all the same time. I’ve exchanged emails and tweets and messages with JJ, and Awmber and all sorts of lovely people who I know, are just an email away. People I haven’t met, people I haven’t spoken to in real life. People who care, just the same.

I think, that without a life outside of blogging, without the real-life friends I have and the adventures I go on and the decisions I make, I wouldn’t have anything to blog about. I wouldn’t have the blogger friends that I do, and I wouldn’t have anything to connect with or share. I think it’s pretty safe to say that while I blog, blogging is not my life. It’s only a segment.

Donald Millar wrote a book, called A Million Miles in A Thousand Years. In short, it’s about how he attempts to edit down his life to adapt it to a screenplay, and how he ends up reinventing himself to capture the viewers attention.

In the first chapter he says:

“The saddest thing about life is you don’t remember the half of it. You don’t even remember half of half of it. Not even a tiny percentage, if you want to know the truth. I’ve got this friend Bob who writes down everything he remembers. If he remembers dropping an ice cream cone on his lap when he was seven, he’ll write it down. The last time I had talked to Bob, he had written more than five hundred pages of memories. He said he captures memories because if he forgets them, it’s as though they didn’t happen, it’s as though he hadn’t lived the parts he doesn’t remember.”

I thought it was simple. Write it down. Remember the moments that make life worth living.

And reading back through my blog, I remember what I’ve done. Where I’ve been. The adventures I’ve been on. I remember the time I got hit by another car, and decided to start wearing seatbelts. I remember my first trip to Melbourne to visit my bestie, and how we had a brilliant girls weekend. I remember when The Square was new, when I patted a Rhino, and when I played with fire. I remember Quinns first day at daycare, and the day I quit the foul job I had at ICONZ. I remember the anxiety I had at throwing my best friend a hens party, but how it turned out brilliantly. I remember the day I got my sternum peirced, I remember feeding the wild kits, and the day I stopped feeding them. I remember my best friends wedding, loosing friends, gaining friends, and a million, billion other small moments.

I remember all the many small moments I might have already forgotten. I think, if for nothing else, I blog to remember the moments that have made up my life, made me who I am.

If you blog, why do you do it?

I forgot to mention that I guest posted over at casadekaloi.com while the brilliant Stephanie is away in Hawaii with her gorgeous family! Go check it out, if you have a spare moment :)

Snowplanet, the giant freezer filled with “snow”, has had this awesome deal. For the months of January – February you can ride 6pm – 10pm for $19. NINETEEN DOLLARS! That actually blows my mind, and needless to say a bunch of us were up there as much as we could be.

And perhaps it’s just that I haven’t been on a board since October, or that half my reader is filled with posts about snow, but I was pretty keen to get up there (even though everyone knows that Snowplanet has the tendency to be boring after the first little while. What with the two minutes up, twenty seconds down ratio).

And the first time was pretty awesome. We hit the boxes, and bailed and threw ourselves off jumps. I taught Zes how to not fall on his face as much, and my girl JZ taught me to be a bit more brave. The second time they’d changed up the terrain a bit more, and we hit the giant jump, and tried to throw ones off the mini ramps (we’re still learning this part, I can’t land it clean, I’m still turning as I land). Lyth even let me ‘instruct’ him a little, which made me feel like I knew alot more than I thought I did. But after a while, we were just bombing it top to bottom, trying to find a way to hit the terrain in a way we hadn’t already done.

And, after a while you make your own fun:

Like jumping shots with your gear in the carpark.

Sometimes going to a giant freezer can be brilliant. Other times you realise it’s the people you’re with that make it awesome.

Everyday I take Quinn for a walk. Sometimes it’s a short work, just up to the park and back. Sometimes it’s a long meandering wander around the city, or out west, or wherever. Right now I’m loving the peace. Sometimes feeling better is as easy as taking the time to wander around with your dog.

What are you loving about your daily routine right now?

A few weekends ago, after hauling The Third Quarters stuff around, The Third + Fourth Quarters and The Fourth Quarters family, and I drove twenty minutes out west. We walked through the bush for a bit, which looked like this:

And eventually we came to place that looked like this:

We clambered over rocks and swam in freezing but refreshing fresh river water and had a generally brilliant time.

Sometimes I forget that with a little bit of effort you can be somewhere amazing. That morning I’d hoped for perhaps a drip in a chlorinated pool. By that afternoon I was much happier that instead I swam in a river.

Have you hoped for something and been surprised by a much better alternative?

I’m a web designer. I design cute websites, like loveharder.org, or custom blog designs, like justonemiss.com, and even sometimes blog headers. While there was alot of designing going on, I definitely didn’t consider myself a graphic designer. So when a Osborne Street asked me to design a poster for their Sunday Jam Sessions I did that Tall Poppy thing, and said I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. I wasn’t a graphic designer, it wouldn’t be any good. Perhaps I could TRY but they shouldn’t expect greatness.

And then I gave it a shot. And now I’m a little bit proud of what I’ve done.

Pretty, right? I still wouldn’t call myself a graphic designer, but it’s nice to know that I can produce something visually pretty if asked. :)

July last year I wrote a post about Kiva: an organisation dedicated to alleviating poverty via micro-loans. That is to say, that instead of digging a few gold coins out of my purse and depositing it in a bucket for a faceless cause, I used my credit card to loan Maria Espinoza, a magazine retailer in El Alto, Bolivia $25 so she could expand her business. I was one of 10 people who were able to provide Maria a mico-loan that she wasn’t able to get from the bank, so she could expand her business, earn more, and provide for her family.

This week, she paid off her loan in full. And my $25 was returned to me.

I looked through Kiva, and honestly, the number of people whose lives could be made a little more self-sufficient, a little brighter by not a donation, but a LOAN was phenomenal. And I like the idea that I could help someone be a little bit self-sufficent. Giving a man a fish and all that.

So, I used the $25 that was returned to me to help another person. Meet Rebecca, from Koforidua, Ghana.

She’s 35 years old, with two school-aged kids. She runs a roadside grocery store and has done so for the last 4 years. With the Kiva loan, she hopes to expand her business.

It actually blows my mind that she runs a roadside grocery store. On the side of the road. Different places, different people, different customs. I think it’s really amazing, and I was more than happy to help, where I could.

If you’re interested in helping out someone yourself, please check out Kiva. I’ve added some additional information on how Kiva works, just in case you were curious. :)

About Kiva

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

1) Lenders like you browse profiles of entrepreneurs in need, and choose someone to lend to. When they lend, using PayPal or their credit cards, Kiva collects the funds and then passes them along to one of our microfinance partners worldwide.

2) Kiva’s microfinance partners distribute the loan funds to the selected entrepreneur. Often, our partners also provide training and other assistance to maximize the entrepreneur’s chances of success.

3) Over time, the entrepreneur repays their loan. Repayment and other updates are posted on Kiva and emailed to lenders who wish to receive them.

4) When lenders get their money back, they can re-lend to someone else in need, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds.

“If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony.” – Mitsugi Saotome

I tweeted the other day, about how ridiculous it was that coding some everyday functionality made me happy. Because it worked. Because I did it, and it was clever.

This is the kind of thing I would have squeed about with The Ex. I would have messaged him and squeed, because he was my person. My person who I would tell dumb stuff to, who would message me everyday with weird things to look at on the internet, and who I would share my excitement over equally dumb things with. The person I’d txt when I was bored, or upset, or happy, or just because I could.

And now, when I’m excited about something stupid, or proud of something super minor that I did . . . I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t have a person to message. Or txt. None of my friends are going to care that I made a drop down list work interact cleverly with my control group list. The Ex wouldn’t have cared either, except that it was me and he was my person.

And now with no person, I’m at a bit of loss. So I tweeted my excitement. And oh, internet. You are not my person. You didn’t care, with nary an @ reply. I txt’d a friend and he didn’t get it. I messaged another, and while he did get it, he’s a better programmer than me (which isn’t hard, tbh) and didn’t see why I was excited about something so trivial.

So now I’m keeping my excited little squee moments to myself. And I’m learning how to rely on just me, and how to do things alone and happy. I’m learning that if it’s just me, I can eat all the spinach and feta dip and not feel bad that I didn’t share. That it doesn’t matter if I sleep in till 10 past 8, because I don’t have to drop anyone off. There’s no one to mock my girly tv shows, and because I’m only doing my washing now, I can do two loads a month and still have enough underwear and clothes to be good. It means longer hot showers because no one else is waiting to use the hot water, it means spontaneous adventures without having to check in with anyone and it means I get to eat the last oreo if I want it.

It means a million billion good things. Deliciously selfish just-for-me things.

But I miss not having a person. Even if its just for that tiny moment of understanding where I am excited, and there is someone who can see that and be glad.

For those of you without Persons, what do you do?

So, lots of people have one of those lists. The list where you write out everything you wish to do in your lifetime. It’s not an uncommon thing, these lists. I know Maggie from Mighty Girl has her Mighty List, as do many of her readers.

My list was one that I’ve been adding to in my journal since I was old enough to have one when I was 13. Each new journal started a new list, and only the really important things made it all the way to here. When your 13 ‘kiss a cute boy’ seems like a nice thing to put on your list. But when you’re 25 you’ve kissed many a cute boy, and it doesn’t need to be on The List anymore.

In the last week or so I’ve been seriously thinking about what I want to do with myself. I’m all fired up to DO the things I want to do. And as I’m all fired up with enthusiasm, it seems appropriate to share my list. So I can be held accountable, and actually DO these things:

The List.

1 – Feed Stingrays by hand

2 – Learn to Kitesurf

3 – Learn and play a song with bar chords on my guitar

4 – Get Singing Lessons

5 – Move to London

6 – Learn sign language and volunteer somewhere that requires me to use it

7 – Make a successful chicken roast

8 – Get a tattoo

9 – Ride the snow in Europe. Specifically: France, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria.

10 – See the Auroras in person, with my own eyes

11 – Own a house

12 – Make (a GOOD) Pumpkin Soup from scratch Done!

13 – Ride/Swim with an Elephant

14 – Have children

15 – Go to a Music Festival in Europe with Bunny. One of those ones where you have to wear gumboots.

16 – Visit the Greek Islands

17 – Learn how to ride a horse (and actually have it do as I ask)

18 – Shoot + Make a brilliant snow video with sound and clever effects

19 – Meet five of my blog friends, in real life, in their city

20 – Complete the 365 Project

21 – Build/Design my own House from the ground up

22 – See the snow monkeys

23 – Volunteer to help in a 3rd World Country

24 – Learn to ride a motorbike

25 – Swim with whales/dolphins

26 – Hug a koala bear

27 – Volunteer with Habitat for Humanity

28 – Ride at every one of Transworld Snowboardings Top 10 Snowboarding Resorts of North America (2009) [Whistler/Blackcomb, Mammoth Mountain/California, Northstar-At-Tahoe/California, Buttermilk/Colorado, Bear Mountain/California, Snowmass/Colorado, Breckenridge/Colorado, Park City/Utah, Keystone/Colorado Vail/Colorado]

29 – Make Pierogi from scratch

30 – Ride a bike around the base of the Eiffel Tower.

31 – Rock an African Safari

32 – Walk on a frozen body of water

33 – Change a flat tire. Done!

34 – See the Grand Canyon.

35 – Fly first class.

36 – Complete a Guitar-Hero song on Expert

37 – Get my Full License

38 – See the Pyramids (Egyptian and Aztec)

39 – Visit all seven continents of the world (North America, South America, Antarctica, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia)

40 – Be happily married at some point

41 – Get naked on a nude beach

42 – Make a quilt. All by myself.

43 – Go hunting, and cleanly kill a pest (ie, a Possum or rabbits)

44 – Cut off all my hair and be brave, and get a pixie cut

45 – Ride in a helicopter

46 – Figure out how to use my DSLR without the Auto-Focus function

47 – Take recreational culinary classes

48 – Walk along the Great Wall of China

49 – Finish Crocheting my red scarf

50 – Join the Mile High Club

51 – Ride in a hot air balloon

52 – Drive a convertible with the top down

53 – Visit the Amazon

54 – See the giant turtles at The Galapagos Islands

55 – Climb Ayers Rock (Australia)

56 – See the statues at Easter Island

57 – Dive in a submarine

58 – See the Leaning Tower of Pisa

59 – Visit the Vatican City

60 – Visit the Taj Mahal

61 – Pay off my student loan

62 – Attend a Movie Premier

63 – (Graffiti) Bomb a wall

64 – Walk on a glacier

65 – Wander the halls of the Louvre

66 – Plant a tree.

67 – Milk a cow

68 – Visit Stonehenge

69 – Learn how to surf

70 – Participate in La Tomatina

71 – Create a meal from vegetables I’ve grown in a veggie garden

72 – Pat a Tiger

73 – Go on a cruise

74 – Take a trapeze class

75 – Attempt to make cheese

76 – Try a deep-dish pizza in Chicago

77 – Do a road trip from Auckland to Dunedin

78 – See Polar Bears in the wild (Churchill, Manitoba?)

79 – Win and yell ‘Bingo!’ in a Bingo Hall

80 – Experience Zero Gravity

81 – Sand board in the Desert

82 – Ride in a Zorb down a hill

83 – Volunteer at a soup kitchen

84 – Help a stranger

85 – Ride in a gondola down the canals in Venice

86 – Visit the Serengeti

87 – Sail a yacht

88 – Have $10k in my savings account

89 – See a Shakespeare Play at the Globe Theatre

90 – Visit the coffee houses in Amsterdam

91 – Kayak around the Lagoons in the Bahamas

92 – Learn from a Silversmith and make something lovely

93 – Prepare and host a 5-course dinner

94 – Grow strawberries in my garden

95 – See the Nutcracker

96 – Go dog sledding

97 – Mail 100 hand written letters

98 – Ride the Orient Express through Asia

99 – Witness a solar eclipse

100 – Ride the snow in Japan

If I complete something on my list, it will no doubt get a post. :) Do any of you have lists?