I won the award!

Last night was the gala dinner for the Young Achiever Awards and I was excited to hear all about the different projects that the young people at the awards were involved with.

I was a finalist in the Community Service Category and I arrived early to meet the sponsor for the award and the other finalists. As it turned out, I only got a chance to meet one of the other two finalists initially, a young man called Lars. Lars and I started to superficially chit chat until I asked him what he did. When he told me he had started an orphanage in Nepal, I thought, "Wow, congratulations on you efforts! (and you must be delighted to know that you have won the award tonight!)".

Later in the night, the sponsor for my category (Cartridge World) expressed how they had chosen their winner. They looked for someone who reached a number of people in a diverse range of projects, who had an ongoing impact and who had given up a lot in order to benifit many. They said that the one factor that distinguished the category winner from the other candidates was how the individual lived their day-to-day lives.

I was selected to be the winner of the 2007 Young Achiever Award for Community Service.

I am stoked that all the volunteering, representation, lobbying, fundraising, marketing and action that I have contributed into all the different organisations over the years has been acknowledged and I am definately inspired to further "WhyCantWeGetMarried . com", my new project aimed at promoting tollerance and acceptance for inter-religious, inter-racial and gay couples world wide.

Thank you to everyone who inspires, challenges and supports me in these and other endeavours.

Woot!

k

Living in limbo...

Living in limbo has become such a regular occurance for me the last 24 months, it is almost comforting...

When I was in London I mentioned I had a job interview for a position with a very successful internet based company in Southern California. Well, as it turns out, the interview went very well and I have been offered a position to start at the company, November 1.

Woot!

Only issue right now is the lack of contact from the company... So although I am supposed to be moving to the States again in about 5 weeks for work, visa is still questionable and therefore flights are not booked and moving plans have not been confirmed...

Who needs stability anyway...

k

I am a fool.

For years I have been telling you all that work is for fools, and now karma has grabbed a hold of my finances and run, forcing me into temporary employment. My goal is to fatten up my bank account while resisting a brain melt over thought melting administrative duties... This is much harder than it sounds...

Sigh. I have a supervisor who probably does no more than an hour of work a day and is in the middle of planning a holiday, as most of my team knows because she interrupts us every few minutes to tell us of new location and pricing deals. I am surrounded by people at their career peak (in the call centre) who complain about their 60 year old neighbours who call the police on them for having parties and driving loud vehicles. I work in an environment where I got cautioned that I was 'Under Investigation' for comforting my friend during my lunch break in the quietest and most inconspicuous part of the parking lot (while people in my building, 200 meters away stopped working to peak through shutters and say 'Oh my god, look!' and report us to the ground security staff).

Sigh.

I don't want to be a fool anymore.

k

When a good Samaritan offers... Take a taxi...

I had just finished handing out resumes to look for temporary work at a shopping conglomeration near the airport (because I had heard that there were plenty of jobs for sale) when I came across a few people obviously having issues trying to get a taxi to the airport, not to far away.

I offered my services and they all gratefully accepted my offer. In the front was me and Craig. Craig's Mrs, Amy was 5 months pregnant and in the back seat with Linda and Farey, two Asian sisters who live in Northern Queensland and who had evidently enjoyed their shopping experience. Upon leaving the parking lot I drove through an unmarked round about onto a road I presumed would take me to the airport. Apparently it didn't. It did however, take us AROUND the airports (yes, both the international and domestic airports), some aeroplane maintenance building, through some unlit and unpopulated back roads and eventually out to the marine park ("What marine park?" I hear you ask, I have no idea...) at which point the consensus was to turn around (especially because my gas light had come on to warn me I was very, very low on fuel).

40 minutes later, a drive through a random little village ("Brisbane has villages?!" you're asking... I didn't think so either...), back to the base of the Gateway Bridge, along the motorway and past where we started to go less than five minutes down the road to the airport, I got them onto their pre-booked flights which they had pre-cautiously left ample time to get to. Good thing.

Moral: When a good Samaritan offers to take you a short distance, stick with the taxi... Unless of course you enjoy this sort of thing, which apparently my guests did, because they paid me!

Wait... Maybe they thought it was like a kidnapping pay off... Opps...

k

Filling in gaps.

Because I have done a whole lot of nothing to advance my resume in the last year or so I was starting to feel a bit down. Kristina decided it was time to perk up my spirits a little and nominate me for an award, the Young Achievers Award for Community Service in fact.

This made me feel a little bit better but what made me feel damn well incredible was when she told me that I had been short listed into the top three nominations for this award!

Apparently what got me into the top three nominations was a project I have been thinking of and have been slowly progressing towards, that is designed to initially create awareness about the inequalities and unfairness faced by homosexuals, people in inter-racial relationships and people in inter-religious relationships. Step two is generating understanding for these people and step three is about instigating acceptance. That is about all I can tell you about the project at this stage but I am TOTALLY stoked to find out that there seems to be a lot of support for my idea.

Will absolutely let you know the progress of the award and my project.

With love and joy!

k