A Love Letter
Dear Australia,
I will miss you. I’m sorry we have to part ways, but I know if I don’t go now, I won’t go ever. And I can’t live with the what-ifs.
I will miss your wide skies and clouds that go on forever. I will miss your beaches and the way that the sun reminds me how pale I naturally am.
I will miss the countryside, though I am a city/beach dweller at heart. I will miss how Melbourne bustles and how Flinders Street Station stands so bold and marvellously on a summer’s day.
I will miss the happy memories that I have made here, all the laughter and love. I will miss the familiarity and how the words bogan and reckon and fortnight are so easily understood. I will miss the lovely friends I have made, especially those over the last 4 years.
Sometime in the future I will miss you like never before. I will miss all the good things and probably some of the bad too. I will listen to Cold Chisel and Paul Kelly and Crowded House and they will transport me home like they have so many times before.
I want you to know though, that some of what I’m leaving behind I don’t want back. The isolation and the feeling that I don’t quite fit, they can go into the Pacific and stay forever more. I won’t be needing them, and I’d prefer if you didn’t hand them on to someone else.
You will always be my home, the place I grew up and the place that helped shape how I saw the world. You are a blessing through all your faults, like home is to so many of us no matter where we were born.
While I’m gone, I hope you will keep making progress and remembering that your people deserve equal rights. I hope that you will be a wonderful place to come home to (whenever that time comes) and somewhere that your people can feel safe and loved.
Please keep the people I care about as safe and well as you can.
Love always,
Dannielle
xx
A Moment in Time: Monaco
It was a sunny August day in 2006 when I took a day trip to Monte Carlo, Monaco. It was unlike any place I had been before. Stunning and full of wealth, but also calm and friendly. There are places you go that are so expensive that you don’t spend a cent, you just walk, look and listen.
The changing of the guard here was so different to London (the only other one that I have seen). They walk right by you. Up close, no huge gates and fences in the way. It felt more welcoming.
I remember taking the bus up to the top of a hill and sitting on a park bench with a peach I bought in Nice. It would have been a picture perfect scene, but a wasp decided he wanted my peach so the scene was more of me darting wasp (which from a far just looked like I was dancing around the park bench, haha). I wonder if I would remember it like I do without that wasp? Probably not.
I don’t like to get caught in the past too much, it’s no fun. But I do sometimes like to look back on the moments and the places and remember what fun they were. I may share a few more with you here.
x
What Tech to Take to a Conference
Problogger was a few weeks ago now, but it was my first conference where I knew that I wanted to take notes. I had grand ideas about using my laptop and taking quick but awesome notes on there. I took quite a lot of things with me that I thought I would use, but I thought I’d share what I took with me vs. what I actually used at the 2 day event.
What I took:
- My 13″ MacBook Air
- My Olympus Pen Camera
- My iPhone 4
- My Power Bank External Battery (for any smart phone that uses a USB to charge)
- Notepad and pens
I thought the laptop was going to be awesome and would be the main thing I used, but it was a bit awkward to balance on my lap and I noticed that people were watching me type, which always causes me to get flustered and make silly spelling mistakes. While it is really light for a laptop, it was still quite heavy and annoying to lug around as many of the sessions were in different rooms and you had to change quickly.
I also thought I would take a heap of photos with my digital camera, but I found that I was paying too much attention to the speakers to be snapping away. I did take a few with my phone though.
What I used:
- My iPhone 4
- My Power Bank External Battery
In the end it was my iPhone and the Notes app that I used the most over the 2 day event. I can type on it quicker than I can on anything else and have learnt that I don’t even need to look at the screen to type the words correctly. Awesome! It may have looked a little rude, like I was texting through the whole thing, but I actually managed to take some quite detailed and super helpful notes while the speakers were taking. I took a few photos here and there, but had a separate note for each session.
The Notes app is awesome if you have Mountain Lion on your Mac like I do, as I have them set to auto sync, so all my notes from the conference were on my Air when I opened it at the end of the day.
The Power Bank* was (and still is) my best investment, and I’m glad I took it with me. It is an external charger that holds around enough charge to charge your smart phone around 10 times (approximately). Because my phone is old, the battery runs out faster than it used to, but having the external charger meant that I could charge up the phone while still taking notes. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about the phone being flat when I needed it most and I still keep it charged up and in my handbag for whenever I’m out.
I didn’t really use my notepad and pens at all, but they were handy to have. I did use them in the break when I was doing some planning. Sometimes it’s nice to handwrite your ideas when you’re thinking through an idea.
What do you take to these sorts of events? Do you have a can’t-do-without?
*Link is to an Australian site. Not an Affiliate Link.
