I love orchids.
As a flower they are elegant, combining form and function in the most beautiful of designs. But beyond this beauty lies a touch of romance – as each type of orchid aims to attract a particular type of insect.
Below are some photos of my lovely Moth Orchid which has finally reached full bloom. Beautiful!
It’s October. The sky is grey, the ground is wet from rain and we’re contending with another (hopefully final) cold snap.
And this journal is lagging way behind. There has been so much happening lately that it’s hard to find the time to sit down, put my brain into ‘blogging’ gear and catch this thing up.
There’s a lot happening at work at the moment. If you’ve read one of my previous posts you’d realise I’m not happy where I am. I am now very sure that my discontent with my career has a lot to do with the work environment I currently find myself in.
But I am not the only one who feels this way! Everyone else who I work with has the same complaints and we can trace most of our discontent down to one factor. We are working together to fix this problem – but that’s all I am allowed to say about it at this point.
I am so busy! When I’m not juggling an incredibly uncreative and boring work project that doesn’t seem to EVER end, battling the workplace politics, working on my cv and struggling with decisions about portfolio design – I’m trying to contend with a million decisions and ideas about my wedding.
The first step in planning this event is deciding on a venue and booking in a date. Much harder than it sounds! You can’t choose soley on price as some that seem expensive are inclusive of so many details and others that seem cheap have tons of hidden costs.
At the moment I am creating a short-list of venues and photographers that we can see when I return home at Christmas. Then, once a venue has been decided – I can start getting down to the fun and creative things like theming, styling and fun little interactive ideas for the reception!
One of my favourite sites at the moment is a beautiful wedding idea blog based in Oregon called Style Me Pretty. Even if you are not designing a wedding, this place is filled with beautiful colours and creative ideas.
One thing I am looking forward to is dress shopping. One of my bridesmaids, Rowena – is coming to visit me in a couple of weeks and I’m hoping to visit a couple of shops with her to get some ideas and see what styles work best. She’s such a creative friend and she’s very talented at craft and art, so I think she might be fun to brainstorm some ideas with.
Speaking of bridesmaids – at the moment I only have two. We have Rowena, and of course my lovely sister will be my matron of honour, that goes without saying! However, I might need to pick a third as Paul is considering adding a third groomsman. How to pick a third bridesmaid? Very tricky decision.
That’s enough for one post. I’ll leave by saying…
“Hey, Auckland’s sky – grey makes you look fat and miserable. Blue is a much better colour on you. I’m just saying…”
Hola!
You can now see some of my work online at elishadoyle.com. It’s just a quick and temporary solution for showing some of my work until I finish my customised flash portfolio. Keep in mind it’s still a work in progress and I plan to add more content and functionality including flash previews and animations.
That’s all for now!
I am so indecisive.
Okay after the big rant that was the last post, I go ahead and say…
..of course I can design! I can design better than so many people I have seen out there.
Maybe I should just start my own business or freelance. I don’t want to work in a big corporation. I want a small boutique team of 2 or 3 people, doing our own thing, giving customers what they want and meeting a whole heap of people.
Question is, how do you find the business? That’s one reason I don’t like being in Auckland. Too much competition!
Work sucks.
I mean really, it sucks. There’s no other way to put it.
A job I used to enjoy and a culture I used to love has been steered into a dull, uncreative, unvalued, political chasm of uncertainty.
Every morning, I hate my job a little bit more. Doesn’t this mean it’s time to leave? In fact, that might not be a choice of my own. Rumours and unspoken intuitions have caused a feeling of uneasiness to fall over the office. Nobody feels safe.
But what to do? The obvious thing would be to leave, or get prepared to if the time does come I am made to leave.
But I don’t even know how successful I will be at getting a new job. I mean sure, I am creative and I love being creative. But having worked in e-Learning, my portfolio is a little scarce when it comes to good and creative design – particularly as the last 2 years haven’t seen much creative opportunities come out of this place. I try to buff up my collection with personal and charitable work, but I get very frustrated when designing and worry that maybe I don’t have what it takes to cut it.
But I also develop! I can code. I don’t have the mathematical logic however to do this easily and methodically as it is required by most development positions. I am not formally trained in this either. To make things worse, the scripting that I do know (AS 2.0) is now almost redundant. Everyone requires AS 3.0 and OOP experience these days, and they are vastly different to the language that I know.
So basically I feel like I can do a little of everything, but perhaps with mediocrity. I am not happy with this. I want to be really good at something, with the confidence in myself that I can do the job and do it really well. But I also want to be working in a job that I feel MATTERS. That at the end of the day, I can feel like I’ve made a difference to the world some how, some way.
Uh oh, one catch. I need cash. Why does money ruin our lives? I’m only here now because I need the money. I have debts to pay off, I have a car to pay for, an upcoming wedding. It feels so impossible to drop everything.
Especially when I consider changing careers completely. I would love to go back to university and study something that I know I would get a job in, that I could work anywhere in and that made a difference. Something like teaching or nursing.
But how could I do this when this is full time? I don’t want to have to sell the car, I don’t want to have to rely on Paul to work and support us, I don’t want to cancel our wedding.
I’m not entitled to ANY support payments whilst studying because Paul earns a decent salary. Decent enough, but not enough to cover both of us! Sure I could get a part time job, but at $11 an hour working as well as studying, having to pay rent and everything else, it still seems impossible to get by.
Then there are things like houses. Not working for three years… means there’s no way we could be able to afford a deposit for a house for at least another 6 years.
Have you ever felt so incredibly stuck?!
No, I did not become a monk and join the monasteries of Cambodia . I did not get lost in the shopping malls of Singapore, never to be seen again. Nor did I cut myself off from technology and become a farmer in the green countryside of Ireland. I also didn’t drop everything to persue a career as a dancing girl in Montmartre, Paris.
No, in true Elisha fashion I have simply neglected this blog because I am a talented procrastinator.
There was just so much to write after the holidays that I put it off… but by putting it off it meant that there were even MORE things to write…
You get the picture.
Anyway the important thing is, here I am now! Besides, most of you who know me have followed my adventure via facebook and twitter. Social media these days makes it so easy to keep people updated in just a few sentences and photogalleries.
That doesn’t mean my blog is dead! Just that I need a little more motivation to keep it up to date.
So rather than post one gigantic post, I’ll break things down into a few.
Stay tuned and have faith, I promise I won’t leave this hanging for another three months.
Only one more working day to get through and two more sleeps until I set off on what Rowena likes to call my ‘Irish Cambodian Adventure’.
I’m actually quite exhausted from all the organising I’ve done for this trip. From the destinations, travel insurance, hotels to the aircraft, I’ve designed the trip from the ground up!
Just got back from the shops where we picked up a whole lot of malaria tablets and bits and pieces (about 5 different bits of medication only cost us $15 in total!) and a new pair of shoes (my last pair of sneakers had a hole in the toe that exactly matched the hole in my sock…)
At least all the less-than-nice things like vaccinations have been taken care of now. Speaking of vaccinations… what a mess that turned out to be! To cut a long story short, the nurse was a bit distracted and actually jabbed me with Paul’s used needle before realising her accident and freaking out a little. She was understandably shocked (and I didn’t realise the severity of the mistake until later) but nothing was discussed with me about the possible health consequences before I had left.
After a day or two of thinking about what had happened and realising how dissatisfied I was with how the situation was handled, I got in touch with them. They met me after hours and gave me an official apology, filled out an accident form and discussed with me the measures they would take to prevent this mistake from happening again. Thankfully there are no health risks as it was Paul and not some random person I’d met the day before! Felt so sorry for the nurse though… yes it was her mistake which no nurse should make but she was so upset about it and I do understand nurses are only human too! But I was satisfied with the steps they were going to take to stop this from happening again. It wasn’t solely the nurse who was to blame, but in fact the entire process at the surgery. Changing this and putting different standards in place will prevent this kind of accident. Lucky I’m a nice person! I could just imagine if it was some arrogant, pig-headed wanker… I was completely level headed, calm and nice the entire time.
Anyway! Can’t wait for 4 weeks of.. NO WORK! YAY!
Our trip looks a little bit like this:
I’ll be taking my laptop with me and most of the hotels where I will be staying have wireless internet. This means, in theory, I should be able to post lots of photos and hopefully a couple of entries during my travels.
So in that case – next time I write this, I’ll be half a world away!
It’s another rainy, cold Autumn Auckland Sunday. My last one here for a whole month! Paul and Dave are busy shooting bad guys on the PS3 and I’m trying to keep cosy and warm whilst fending off the advances of a cold (and I’m quick to point out.. definitely not swine flu.. hehe OINK!)
It has been two months since my last entry… I am officially slack! But slack or not – here I am now to tell you about my incredibly eventful two months. In fact, it has been so eventful that I don’t think I’ll put it all in the one gigantic post… so read the posts below to see some of the things I’ve been up to!
Call me crazy but the idea of jumping out of a plane at 16,000ft (4.87km), free-falling for 72 seconds at 120mph (195kph) really appealed to me.
Paul and Alan had both received birthday presents of skydives and this was a great opportunity to realise one of my dreams I’d had since I was about 13!
On April 4th we all drove up to a little airfield surrounded by corn fields in Mercer, just south of Auckland. This is where we spent the next few hours sitting and watching people turn from tiny dots in the sky into large colourful parachutes descending back to earth while waiting for our turn! Most of the people jumping that day were solo jumpers (who they call ‘Sporties’) who were as casual and laid back about the whole sport as though it was snowboarding. The fact that everyone seemed to return from the field alive and with all limbs attached was a good sign.
16,000 ft is the highest skydive in New Zealand. But I figure – if you’re going to do something as extreme as jump out of a plane, why would you be conservative?! There was an added sense of excitement about this height. It’s not considered a standard sky-dive as legally the aircraft is required to carry oxygen masks and we had to be briefed about the dangers of hypoxia. And yet 16,000ft was clearly the sought after height for the tandem jump instructors. The minute it was mentioned there was a jump from that height we had skydivers lining up to be our tandem partners!
When it was our turn to go up, we got fitted into the less-than-flattering jumpsuits and tight (thankfully!) harnesses before jumping onto the back of a ute and driving out to the grass runway. I’d had waves of both nervousness and excitement continuously since arriving but the closer the time came to jump into the plane, the less nervous I became! I even agreed to be the first to jump.
We waited for a good while as the pilot had some difficulties setting up the oxygen tanks whilst the smell of aviation fumes burnt our eyes and noses. I imagined how horrified my mum would be in this situation! She hates small planes for one (especially ones that are being ‘fixed’ while you’re waiting to board them) not to mention heights and falling…
Finally we jumped aboard. Paul’s partner was the Jump Master – Billy. I had a really nice English guy named Jeff who just happened to be the same height as me, whilst Alan’s partner was a crazy American called Roy. The plane was tiny… only enough room for the 6 of us really. Because we were jumping first, Jeff & I had to sit on the floor. No seat belts in this thing!
The floor seat was actually a good choice. I could see out the window, but I couldn’t see directly down! The funny thing was, the higher we got and the closer we got to jump, the more calm I became. I was really enjoying the flight and the gorgeous view… and the idea that I was about to do something I’d always wanted to!
Then the plane slowed and the door was slid open. It was only a matter of seconds before Jeff had pivoted us around so my legs were hanging over the edge… and before I had ANY time to object or even think… we were out!
The feeling was crazy. Despite everything you know, your body is expecting that it is going to hit something. But of course it doesn’t! The first few seconds are so surreal. It’s very cold, the rush of air is incredibly loud and the feeling of falling is completely mind blowing. Then you get your bearings, your jump instructor tells you to extend your arms out and you start to take it all in. You are this little speck in the sky falling very, very, very fast. But it doesn’t feel like falling after the first few seconds. It’s just like floating in space (albeit very windy space) over a beautiful aerial photograph.
We were lucky enough to have a partially cloudy day. This meant we had a gorgeous view below us of both blanket patches of cloud and the farmland below. And then I we fell through a cloud!!! THAT was awesome!
Then the time came to pull the chute. It was far less jerky than you would imagine… pretty subtle actually. The most noticeable part is the sudden, deafening silence. And then you’re floating! Jeff handed me down two loops and explained how the steering worked and pretty soon I was steering us around a couple of turns. This however started making me feel a little nauseous because the spins were really, really fast!
Then we came in for an easy landing in the field, shortly followed by Alan and Paul.
One word: Incredible!
I’ve included some photos I took before we went up on the jump (for obvious reasons I couldn’t take any when we were actually on the way up). However… Alan had ended up organising for a video of his jump, which was filmed through a camera attached to Roy’s arm. He was nice enough to give us a copy! Because he jumped second, you get to see me leave the plane!
Enjoy!
The time had come to say goodbye to our beautiful MX-5. We loved it far too much for a car, but after the latest set of problems over Christmas with radiator hoses blowing up etc (you can read that in an earlier post!) we just couldn’t trust it any more. Every time we took her out for a drive, we’d be worried about breaking down again!
We gave her a fitting farewell however. Just before we were to find her successor, we accidentally stumbled upon the MX-5 club taking a leisurely Sunday club drives! We were invited to join them so we ended up as part of a convoy of convertibles driving through the country roads!
That afternoon we found a beautiful new car. A 2007 Mazda RX-8. More $ than we’d ever expected we’d spend on a new car, but it was exactly what we wanted. It was sporty, yet practical (it had reasonable boot space AND back seats!) and it was also NEW. Nothing was going to go wrong with this thing, at least not any time soon.
We got a great trade in on the MX-5 (more than we would have been able to get for it on Trademe). Especially considering the Warrant of Fitness was out, we needed new brake pads, a new roof and a new headlight…
Almost cried leaving the car at the dealership though! That will always be my favourite car. But our new one is very easy to love also!
The MX-5 Club
Our new RX-8
