| lisa's profileCarpe Diem!PhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
December 31 Wrapping up 2008Looking back at 2008 it has been a busy and fruitful year. I look forward to 2009 and believe it will be another busy year with a few goals to kick in a number of aspects of life. I will be having dinner with Father Norbert and my friends tonight. It will be Father’s last meal with us in Brisbane. He will fly home to Indonesia tonight. We miss him already. He has been a source of wisdom and inspiration. Many gifts were prepared and a couple of days ago we worked on a scrapbook/photo album for him. It displays photos of him and the many services he has provided to our community. My brother made a caricature of him which we will also present to him tonight. After dinner, we’ll drive Father Norbert to the Airport. Then it is time to wrap up 2008 and greet 2009 with a smile. I’ll be celebrating new year’s eve at a friend’s house. Only a few hours to that, and I am looking forward to it. Mom just sent us a photo of the manger that she and her team created for Christmas. It features a my brother’s drawing as a backdrop. December 05 Well done Jude Munro for winning the CEO Challenge!I had a great time and enjoyed some beautiful mocktails on Wednesday night. Jude Munro, CEO of Brisbane City Council, held a fundraising event for domestic violence, as part of the CEO Challenge fund raising series. Jude announced that she had won the race and I am very proud of her achievement. Well done, Jude! At the event, I also had the opportunity to meet Ann Sherry, CEO of Carnivale Australia. I had met her before at another function and I thanked Ann for recommending The World is Flat, a great book which I enjoyed reading. November 26 Community day @ BroadbeachThe community event that we organised on Sunday was a success. Cascade Gardens is a great venue. The band and entertainment team were able to create a fun and family-oriented atmosphere. I was also happy that my best friend from Sydney was able to come along. I'm glad we continued on to having dinner together at Beastie Burgers, Southbank. It was an exhausting day, but I went to bed smiling. November 24 And the winner is..I am so proud of my brother. Him and his team members have created a game (‘Debug’) that won first prize at the Game Connect Asia Pacific 2008 Conference. The awards dinner was held at Hilton Brisbane on Friday 21st November. He rang me not long after the announcement was made. I was at the gym on the elliptical trainer and I almost fell off it! I was very happy for them and know how hard the team has worked, burning the midnight oil a few times and just bunkering down to do the work. What an amazing achievement and kudos to him and his team. First week @ RMSSI’ve had a great first week at RMSS. We have a ‘great, open, no-nonsense, can-do, go-getting and collaborative’ kind of culture. During my first week: · ...I have been introduced to everyone (glad to say I can remember everyone’s names by now) · ...Learnt the coffee man and cleaner’s names · ...Celebrated a colleague’s birthday in the office over beer and chips · ...Relocated to the second floor with the rest of my team · ...Getting to know our products and services better · ...Attended a client meeting—really insightful.
I’m no longer the newest kid on the block as we welcomed two new people this morning :-) November 12 Last day at AvanadeI've done my exit survey, exit interview and soon it will be time to exit :)
I'm lucky to have received overwhelming replies to my farewell ("Sayonara") email. Overwhelming in the sense of quantity and the kind words contained within the emails. Now that the project handover is complete, I am making sure I have most of my friends in Facebook and/or Linked In. November 01 Caboolture visitI had a pleasant trip to Caboolture with my priest to accompany him for a mass with the locals there. Bob and Gail were very hospitable and I thoroughly enjoyed the mass and lunch. Their friends (Norman, Leslie, Hazel, and others) were very lovely too and had many stories to tell. In total, I believed we travelled at least 120 km but the experience was well worth the trip. I was particularly touched by the simplicity of the mass that we celebrated; and the prayers of the faithful was very "real", i.e. those who said their prayer, were asking for things like rain, health and for the abortion laws not to be passed. I hope I can meet them again next month. October 07 Festival of Lisa's birthdayFestival of Lisa's birthday. I got that phrase from Oscar! I had a great birthday on Saturday. If one of the measures of a successful life is the number of people, friends and family that remember your birthday--and care about you enough to send you a text message, email, Facebook message, etc--then I am a very successful human being. I appreciated all your well wishes and love, everyone. Even the moon was smiling at me for my birthday. Here's proof! Ha ha ha
On my birthday, I took some time to reflect of the steps I've taken to this point in time. Often in life, we desperately look for signs, especially when faced with a decision. When we find ourselves in a conundrum, we look to the universe to give us a clear answer. But more often than not, we have to simply take a leap of faith. Life should be meaningful. Life is not long enough for us to live in fear of flexing our decision muscles. Focus on what we want, not on what we fear. That is usually when the stars will align to give us what it is that we want and need. Leading up to my birthday, I had a couple of fun outings. One was a night out with a good friend of mine from work to attend Women in IT Gala. It was an awards night where we recognised outstanding women in the field of IT and biotechnology. It had a theme of masquarade.
I also had a lovely dinner with mates from my old work. Tim was in town, so we got together for dinner with Dan and Gareth. Nice pick of venue (the Caxton), guys!
A couple of other ex-work-colleague friends also said some lovely things to me. I was humbled by JT's words... September 13 APC discernment morning I attended Archdiocese Pastoral Council's discernment morning at the Father Bernard O'Shea Centre this morning and it ended with lunch. What an interesting session it was. What made it interesting was the information that were given to us about the Council and the Archdiocese in general. I enjoy being around people. And I had the opportunity to speak to and listen from new friends with different backgrounds and geographical locations (of the Archdiocese). Whilst it is nice to be within groups and communities that we are familiar with, I find it interesting, always, to meet people that have different view points on things. For example, I found it interesting to hear from a lady, Claire, who openly and honestly told us (when we broke up into groups of 10) that she thinks there has been an over-emphasis of youth in churches. Most people in the community she serves are elderly people. And some of these people feel that they are not being noticed and that they are being forgotten. It would be interesting to have the opportunity to try to help solve issues such as these. The community that I am currently part of, I believe, have no issues relating embracing and involving the elderly people. Towards the end of the session, we were asked to complete a list of questions. The main purpose of the exercise was to help us discern our nomination to the Council and whether we wanted to formally accept the nomination. Having listened intently to the information that the presenters shared with us earlier, it was quite obvious what the ideal profile of a Council member would be. I answered truthfully and with integrity, knowing that if my skill set and talents were not what the Archbishop needed in his Council, then I know I have helped him make that decision. September 11 Friends make the world go around I called my god daughter for her birthday today. She spoke in baby speak which I didn't understand a word of. I had a lovely surprise call from the my team leader for World Youth Day volunteering that I did back in July. Tonight I was meant to be having dinner with an old friend but she had to cancel which was disappointing because I was really looking forward to it. I've even cancelled a meeting with another friend so I can meet her, but I do understand her circumstance for cancelling. I hope to be able to meet her next month when she's back in town. One of the thing I most enjoy about my life is being able to be a collector of friends. All throughout my life I have been fortunate to have met unique individuals from all walks of life. And these people, even though their life and my life have moved on (to another job, to another city, to another phase), choose to stay in touch with me. They choose to be a friend--the kind that I know I can call upon if I needed help. More importantly, they know that. One such example would be my ex-manager who now lives in Singapore. I am blessed to have her think of me and pick up the phone to call me for an hour chat, every now and then. This coming Saturday, I have to attend a meeting (they termed it 'a discernment session') which I was invited to due to my nomination to the Pastoral Council. I enjoy doing my work within the community that I currently serve. It does get emotionally challenging at times but I have learnt to rise above the petty squabbles. What's important is that the community does benefit from the time and energy that I dedicate to it--and I get a nice rewarding feeling as a result of that. It is a feeling of warmth--the same that I felt when I gave a bleeding boy some bandaids; or when I handed a pack of tissue to a lady on the bus who had really runny nose. The glimmer in their eyes when they say, "thank you" makes me realise--and makes me want to make other realise--that it doesn't take a lot to make another happy. You don't have to be a retired super star or billionaire mogul to be able to be kind to and help another person. A simple smile goes a long way, especially if your smile is the only smile that that person receives today. |
Carpe Diem!By Lisa Liputra
|
|||||||||
|
|
