The great advantage of having a reputation for being stupid: People are less suspicious of you...

After graduating in December 2005 from a highly strenuous and incredibly interactive/worthwile Commerce degree I have come to realise that I have lost touch with a lot of people from my school days. But to be quite honest it is the people that I have met and maintained a very special closeness within the last year who have had the most impact on my life to date. So in conclusion I don't really care about the others!

And that's my two cents...

No, I do have something more to say as usual ;-). I often catch up with these girls from school at 21sts, drunken Saturday nights out or a casual movie night here and there. But when I do it is so bizarre to have conversations with them. It often goes something like this...

Me: "So what have you been up to?"
School Friend: "Oh nothing much, me and my bf saw a movie last night, mainly work and uni homework etc etc... How about you?"

Now yes my life is basically that exciting too :-P AND NOT THAT THAT IS A BAD THING! But recently to think of some of the stuff I have been doing in AIESEC, work and travel I often feel like I can only retort... "Yeah same for me..you know, uni, work and stuff and things."

Its like when you try to tell someone you are in AIESEC by explaining it as "going out with uni friends" or being in a "uni organisation..." To come out and splurge to someone... "well actually last week I met with the Director of HR for Department of Admin and Info Services and next week I am meeting with the CEO of Save the Children" or, "I just spent 5 days writing 2 business proposals and action plans for this P-BoX I am a Project Manager for..."

yeah well I can just see the blank stares already :-)

But to tell you the truth, like I said before, I really couldn't care less. I know that in 10 years time I will look back on the experiences I am engaging in now and realise that what I was doing at 21 was something kinda cool, was slightly abnormal and did deserve blank stares.

Even moreso in the past year I have worked out that what has ensured a growing seperation between me and my high school friends is the different stages of growth we are experiencing. We are growing in different directions but the really cool thing is that as I have turned down a different path I have met up with new people.

I have developed some amazingly strong friendships with people who are experiencing similar emotions, big world ideas and wanting to challenge their future pathways. I can't wait to spend even more hours telling them about "what I have been doing" - how many hours I just spent working on AIESEC proposals or that I have just returneed from an AIESEC conference in the Philippines, or that first years were annoying me in my uni classes I was teaching today... And not just getting a blank stare but a canvas of emotions and opinions engaging in the conversation.

Thank you Mandela :-)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God (or whatever that is out there) : your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of (life) within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others.

Forecast for the next few days...heavy fog

It's like this heavy fog has entered my brain whilst sleeping - or not sleeping - at "AIESEC SA's hottest State Conference ever" (that's its official title) and its settling in for the winter :-)

I drove home yesterday from "AIESEC SA's hottest State Conference ever" completely bewildered,in awe, frazzled and incredibly drained. For a start I have never been so excited by a bunch of young people (ie. people my age) in my life. I could not believe their ability to challenge, interact and "actively participate" within AIESEC activity so early on in their AIESEC experience. I am not only excited but slightly overwhelmed about leading a team of people who are amazingly determined, creative and driven towards their own goals.Will I measure up?

But it is not just that - there continues to be the whole "where to from here" question buzzing around in my head. Furthermore realising that that was my last State conference and this could be my preparation for "heading towards the future" - the end of my AIESEC experience...

A question arose while at conference and I think it is contributing to this heavy fog that seems to be hovering over my head, prohibiting me from communicating effectively to any of my family members, friends or even sleeping.

"How long is too long in AIESEC?"

The past few weeks I have been evaluating whether or not I will ever stop being challenged by this organisation. But I am purely using it as a safety net for entering the big world and doing more stuff and things? I continue to re-evaluate the amount of time I should spend within this organisation...how do you know when it is time to leave?

This point was highlighted moreso after hearing a previous AIESEC Alumni speak about her experiences in AIESEC for four years and returning to her region as an alumni and being inspired about where the SA region is going today and wanting to be further involved. AIESEC is constantly changing and that is why people can end up being in it for 6 years...

Last weekend I welcomed a 28 year old AIESEC intern into my home, into SA and into her intership at Australian Refugee Association. To see a 28 year old (who has been in AIESEC for 5 years, had an AIESEC internship in Kenya and worked in public health for 3 years) almost cry and laugh and cheer about how amazing her internship is, an internship that I worked on for 8 months to get her here made me almost laugh, cry and cheer! To hear her say it is the best experience and job she has ever had after 2 days of working there made me realise that AIESEC continues to make a difference in a person's life even after thinking you are at the "point of settling down."

I loathe thinking about the fact I have 3 more months to achieve the thousands of things I want to in AIESEC before going on my internship to Africa. To think I am going to miss out on the achievements that the new AIESEC SA region is going to achieve. To miss out on the satisfaction of new members, that I have lead and encouraged, when they reach their goals and then ask the question - "now how can I challenge myself further?"

And yet when I try to think about a logical and organised way of approaching the next few months all I see is this heavy fog. I try turning on the headlights, working harder at fumbling my way around all of these ideas, tasks and opportunities in the future but I seem to be merely glazing over, day dreaming and not able to find one stable object for navigation.

Now while all of these posts seem to have been very ponderous- Chloe's new word :-) - and reflective about my life you must recognise that this is one side of me...the time when I get to stop, breathe, think and let my heart do the writing.

For those who know me, they will know that this is Chloe's deeper, ponderous self and that I like to be able to have this space to splurge all of this stuff so that during the day, the week and the middle of the night I can party, I can scream and laugh and talk about bullshit. I can dance like an AIESEC cult maniac, I can chant so that I loose my voice for 2 days, I can drink 3/4 bottle of vodka with my closest friends, I can shotgun a beer, I can win the SA SKOLLING CUP and I can call myself and close others "spaztards and mongs." :-) That's just life whether I am in heavy fog, thunderstorms, 45 degree heat or a beautiful spring day.

All the world is but a stage, and we are merely it’s players

What was he really thinking and feeling when this was written all those years ago? Was it a bleak, morbid statement of how we have limited control over our destiny, that a "higher power" is just playing with our lives, writing a script for us as he/she sees fit?

Something I have been contemplating over the past year and a half is "where will I be at 22? at 27? at 30?" Almost as if I don't have a choice... waiting for an apple to fall on my head and the realisation to hit me - YES that's what I am supposed to do with my life!

I continue to struggle with the idea of where I am going, the direction, the colour of the footpath beneath my feet, whether I should turn right or left as seen in every Disney movie... is it down the dark, dismal fearful road or through a field of pansies and pixies?

Is life a struggle - do we only know we are going in the right direction if we are struggling to get there and then when we reach the other end we have "learnt so much" and "changed/grown"?

While this is not a promo for AIESEC it is amazing how joining this organisation in my final year of university transported me to a changed life, new boundaries and different opportunities.

In March 2005 I joined AIESEC knowing that in December 2005 I would be a graduate of a B. Commerce, going on an AIESEC exchange in London, working for PWC and then returning home in December 2006 with just enough time to apply for a graduate job in Deloittes in Adelaide or Melbourne. No questions asked... I had finally after 3 years created a plan - a 5 year plan to be exact. I knew where I was going, who would be there with me in 5 years time and how much money I would be earning, right down to the colour shoes I was wearing on January 8th 2007.

I then attended my first conference where I realised not only had I joined a cult of people who danced like no one was watching, drank like there was no tomorrow and chanted like Red Bull crazed teenagers. But also I realised AIESEC consisted of people who continue to challenge your views, your ability to "step up" and you have an environment for making lifelong connections with people in a single hour. Since April 2005 I have never questioned my actions, my plans, my future so many times in my entire life previously. Do I:

> Go to Africa and work on a HIV/AIDS project
> Travel through South America for 6 months backpacking
> Work in a bar in Canada for 6 months and travel through Alaska and Nth America
> Backpack around AUS
> Move to Melbourne and get a job - settle down, become a corporate whore
> Volunteer my time o'seas or at home
> Do a traineeship in Bangladesh, Dubai, Greece, Europe or China?

So that is why I ask Shakespeare's question... after returning from APXLDS last week to have only more questions, fewer answers, more passion, less pessimism and even more of a limited idea of where I am heading in life... I wonder do we really ever have control? Is there a point to planning? Goal setting yes... but are we merely players, chess pieces being moved around the board based on the actions of our opponents?

To have such lack of direction and yet such passion for wanting to make an impact in certain areas of my life and others is so difficult and challenging. But keep in mind while I say all this it is not about giving up...it is about fuckin working through it, living it, treasuring every second and not overanalysing situations. After all as a very wise friend said to me once...

Life is a journey...Not a destination

Am I worthy?

Well it is 12am in the morning, just like any other weekday with me and my insomniac internet habits running wild, and I start questioning the idea of a "blog."

I would have started something like this a long time ago but I continued to ask myself the question..."am I worthy of writing a blog?" Do I really have anything substantial to tell the world about? All the blogs I have read are people sharing their adventures overseas, expressing their political views, discussing issues in life that are powerful and impacting. But all I have to offer are my thoughts, my insides and guts being splattered over the computer screen and (as you will soon discover) my ability to *over* express myself.

But perhaps this whole "blog" thing isn't that bad an idea... What if everyone were to expose their feelings, their diary, opinions, lifestyles and cultures over the net. Would we be more tolerant and understanding of why people behave in the way they do? Would we move from a cold, cement cell of limited communication to a world of free opinions, emotions and expression?

OK so if you haven't given up on me yet you will guess that while I am still not sure if I am worthy for a blog I am at the stage where I don't care. I can have one subscriber or one hundred. I can share with you what is occuring in my life or pass by as another faceless individual in the main street of town. Whether or not I am worthy I don't care...this is my blog and I'll cry if I want to :-)