I got so far behind in January this year, an old friend suggested (on facebook) that we could just celebrate New Year’s at the Chinese New Year, February 14 this year. So that’s what I’m doing… 2010 will launch officially in about a week!
In the meantime, I’m getting things from 2009 complete, cleaned up and put away. Drastic things are about to happen to my email inbox. How’s yours looking?
The truth is, I’ve been procrastinating a little and thinking about 2009 a lot. Here’s why:
For me, despite all the happy little videos and everything you’ve seen here, 2009 was not a great year. Actually, that’s me being nice and slightly superficial because now people from all over the world read this blog and I am still sometimes unsure how much of the truth I should say. Here’s the deal: you know those years that are like giant roller coasters, the ones that are so big they hurt? The ones with highs that leave you giddy and breathless and lows that feel like a few too many Gs before you hit the bottom? The ones that are supposed to be fun but bump and jar and turn out painful? 2009 was one of those years.
In coaching, there’s a commonly used model called the Wheel of Life. It’s a way to visually display how things are going in each area of your life (you can change the categories based on what’s important to you), and see quickly and easily where attention should be focused, where things are out of balance, and where things are going well. It looks like this and you assign points, 0 to 10, in each area or domain. For me in 2009 a couple of domains were going well and several (way more than one) domains should have been officially declared disaster areas. They now require long-overdue rescue and relief efforts.
So 2010 is about balancing that wheel. That can be much more difficult as an Expat than it is in your home country, because, for example, at home I loved my UU church. Here there isn’t one, or a writing group or a cadre of old cronies from the Ph.D. program, or a gaggle of girlfriends who’ve stayed all four years I’ve been here. I’ve had a challenging time finding a doctor who delivers the quality of care to which I’m accustomed… I’ve even flown back to the US to visit doctors and have tests paying personally out-of-pocket. That just doesn’t work in the long run… and still all these areas need to be addressed, not simply avoided. So big changes are afoot here at XpatAdventures. In the meantime, I’m still cleaning up from 2009. Here are some impressions from the year:
Some things I’m grateful for from 2009
- seeing so many parts of the world I’d never seen: Nepal, India, China, Prague…
- fabulous work leading courses to corporate leaders worldwide.
- Mom coming to visit so much!
- great dogsitters for Mufasa. Thank you!
- meeting so many women I’d only encountered on their blogs or recordings: Maggie Doyne, Jonatha Brooke, Letha Sandison, Jen Lemen, Andrea Scher, Jen Lee, Christine Mason Miller, Stacey Monk and many more…
- my friend in real life & co-Adventurer A. Davenporto, who moved back to the US. I miss her so.
Highlight Moments of the year:
When a survivor of the Rwandan genocide stood up at the European Summit and said out of the weekend she felt like she could fully engage in life again.
Watching Mama Lucy Painting for Peace at the European Summit for Global Transformation!
Thursday night of the training course with corporate leaders in Cambridge, England and they want to play SingStar (?) on the Wii. I’ve never seen a Wii, but they had no idea I could sing and I am sooo competitive. I beat them all bad with my rendition of the Soft Cell 1981 classic, Tainted Love. That was fun!
After Alesia dragged me walking all up and down the hills of Prague she sees a Thai foot massage place and jokingly says, “You want a foot massage?” Most co-travelers might say no, too expensive, whatever… but I said, “YEAH I want a foot massage! You just dragged me up and down both those giant hills behind us!” It was fun. I’m pretty sure it was Sawasdee Thai Foot Massage, the Hroznová 5 branch.
2010 promises to be a better year than 2009 because I am addressing the wheel, each and every domain. So many areas have been neglected while I traipsed around the world. It’s time to get back to basics. How about you? What areas on your Wheel need some time and attention?
About forty minutes (give or take) out of Amman on the way to Petra, on your right under three giant billboards for Rivage Dead Sea beauty products, there’s the Jordanian equivalent of a truck stop. It’s an unassuming stucco building chock full of handmade textile souvenirs, tchotchkes, touristy knick knacks like these sand paintings, and clean bathrooms.
Stuck in the very front, far, far left corner of the store you’ll find Muhammed hand crafting the finest flatbread topped with thyme, olive oil, pine nuts (sesame?) and fresh white mixed cheeses. It’s called manakish (manaeesh?) generally for the pizza-like creation (as far as I can tell) and zattar specifically when topped with the green thyme mixture of herbs, olive oil and pine nuts or sesame.
None of us had ever explored the historic center of Como, so we headed there first. We parked on the street near the cathedral, just outside the old city walls, and started wandering. It was late in the afternoon and we couldn’t find open lunch places. So what did we do? A trick we learned from a cop friend in the U.S. Ask the police for good, local lunch spots. They always know.
