Along the Away

I have set myself the challenge to walk all 37 walks in the Coastal Walks Sydney book in 2014; a challenge aligned with goals I have to improve my fitness, explore more of the greater Sydney area and spend more time out in nature (tick; tick; tick!)

Here are the 37 walks in the book, I’ll update the list as I tick them off:

I would love to share my progress as I tick them off so stay tuned.

The Happiest 5km on earth! That’s the slogan for the Colour Run which was held in Sydney for the first time today. If you’re not sure what that is, here’s a sneak peek on how it all ends:

It was a scary start, filled with such horrors as this sign:

Here we are at the start… a very different picture – a lot of clean white clothes you may notice.

So the Colour Run is a fun run event that involves running with heaps of other people along a 5km course.

The fun bit is when you run through colour stations where coloured powder is thrown all over you! Here I am emerging relatively unmarked from the yellow station:

Blue is where things got real!

It was so much fun! I haven’t run about giggling so much since I was a kid having summer water fights around the neighbourhood.

I got real colourful :-)

So did the ground!

At the end there was a big colour dance party – the music was pumping and people were jumping!

But the best part was every 15 minutes there was a countdown and coloured powder was thrown from everywhere and everyone! Yeaaah! Rainbow mosh pit!

So, I started my very own Meetup group! I’ve had this idea (or maybe yearning, can I say yearning?) for awhile now. I’m a creative person working in a creative capacity within a very uncreative industry. I’m currently the Marketing Manager at a large public transport company, overseeing both strategic and creative marketing functions including communications, brand identity, art direction and promotion. I was also the in-house graphic designer in this organisation for four years prior to this role.

I love my job but could definitely do with more creative collaboration; my work environment leans more towards a conservative, operations focused mentality.

I really want to connect with other creatives and I thought, if I feel this way surely others working creatively within non-creative work environments do too?

So my Meetup group was born – Sydney In-house Creatives.

The aim is to bring together in-house-creatives who enjoy working from the inside but also crave a connection with other creatives to share experiences, bounce ideas and have a mutual understanding of the shared frustrations. It’s an opportunity to meet cool people doing cool things in uncool industries :-)

I personally would love to learn how others navigate the in-house environment, hear about successful in-house strategies, as well as make new friends.

The group is for marketeers, designers, writers, developers, employee engagement or CSR co-ordinators and similar.

If you work in a creative capacity within a more conservative or corporate environment in Sydney then join my group for a monthly drinks-mingle and dose of engaging conversation and inspiration.

Please share the link – http://www.meetup.com/Sydney-Inhouse-Creatives – if you know someone who would be interested. I imagine it will be slow growing as I’m not sure how on earth I will reach these people… Wish me luck!

Today public transport has rocked my world.

A. On the train to the city I overheard two strangers strike up a heart-warming conversation. It wasn’t about anything significant, but they connected, recognised something in the other, shared a laugh. What if we were all capable of that, with everyone, every day?

B. At Central Station I witnessed a young lady stopping to talk to an elderly homeless woman and arranging to buy her some food at the stand next door. She received a beaming smile of gratitude. How many of those do you receive a day?

C. I got on the train at Central to find a greeting card on a seat left by a stranger to a stranger (me!)

As I held it in my hand I felt stillness and peace with a quiet joy bubbling up deep inside me. There are moments when it is possible to feel pure, unconditional love for the entire world and every soul in it.

Thank you Universe, I hear you loud and clear.

It is with great sadness I farewell an old friend today; my trusty backpack which has carried many a load in its time, been to a hell of a lot of amazing places, been pivotal in some truly hilarious tales.

It was a humble beginning in 2003, purchased in the January Kathmandu sale for a shoe string RTW jaunt. Cheap as you were we saw Canada, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Greece on that trip; good times.

Briefly stored away at the back of a cupboard when I came back to Australia to get a ‘real job’, it wasn’t long before we hit the road again, traveling through Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore in 2005, then checking out Bali and Lombok in 2006. Study kept us grounded in Aus in 2007 but we fled to the tropical paradises of Fiji and Samoa in 2008, followed by chilly Canada again in 2009 via the USA east coast.

It was in the South Pacific that the first little cracks began to appear, your straps being tied together with rope at some point, but it didn’t seem like anything to worry about.

But then 2012 came with the opportunity for an epic 4 month adventure in India. I questioned whether you would make it, especially when a client sent me a spunky new generation backpack, the kind with straps AND wheels. But I didn’t want spunky as much as I wanted reliable and I knew you had it in you. We traveled both north and south, east and west, as well as a side trip to Sri Lanka, and you held it together to the end, though no doubt the fraying and disintegration had taken its toll.

I got you back home onto Australian soil but as I unpacked you that last time my belongings all came out covered by the flaking lining of your insides… I knew we had reached the end.

Farewell old friend, RIP.

My trusty backpack, discarded on a street collection pile ready to embark on his final (…sob…) adventure.

Ten amazing weeks culminated in a frenzy of deadlines as my internship at Janagraha came to an end. It was a fabulous experience, and one that I am truly grateful for. I worked with such an awesome group of people who offered not only support and friendship but the creative, collaborative work environment I was looking for.

It was a valuable opportunity and not wasted on me. I had pretty specific goals for this break from a work environment back home I have been in for seven years. I really needed a new perspective and it delivered in every way. The variety of design projects and a new dynamic definitely broadened my experience, skill set and confidence as a designer and communications professional, as well as re-invigorated my passion and purpose for my work back in Australia.

I was sad to say goodbye to ‘my team’ and the projects I left behind but there’s no doubt I left feeling satisfied with the work I did, in respect to what I contributed to the organisation and what I was able to take away.

As a parting gift my thoughtful team gave me a framed picture of the group of us sitting up on the rooftop of our office building, where we often went for tiny cups of sweet tea and coffee. It is funny the tiny moments, smells, tastes that stay with you when you leave a place and time – sitting on those steps with my Indian friends is one of those moments I know I will always feel like ‘it was just yesterday’.

When I’m connected again I will feature some of the work I produced for Janaagraha.