Seth Godin

Just read another interesting post by Seth Godin, on his blog:

Conflicted

Everything we do that's important is the result of conflict. Not a conflict between us and the world--a conflict between us and ourselves.

We want to eat another dessert but we want to be healthy and skinny as well. Who is we? Who is the self in self control, and who is being controlled?

We want to stand up and make difference and we want to sit down and hide and be safe.

We want to help others and we want to keep more for ourselves.

It's not a metaphor, it's brain chemistry. We don't have one mind, we have competing interests, all duking it out.

This conflict, the conflict between I and me, is at the heart of being human. One side sells the other. Like all kinds of marketing, it's far more effective if you know your audience. You will do a better job of telling a story (to yourself) if you understand who you are marketing to. In this case, I is marketing to me (and vice versa). The marketing is going on in your head...

Successful people have discovered how to be better at self marketing.

I fully agree with what Mr Godin says. I often find it hard to choose which of all the voices inside my head I should listen to. Mainly because I always try to analyze why voice A thinks I should do something in this particular way, while voice B thinks I should do something completely different. All the choices we make changes our lives step by step. Every second of the day we choose our future by making simple choices. Ultimately everything we do, no matter how big or small they may seem at that moment, determine where we end up in life. Now that's pretty scary! Or is it intriguing..? ;)

Back to school, again!

Hi guys,

Feels a bit strange to go back to uni tomorrow after 3,5 months of summer vacation. Strange but fun at the same time. Can't wait to meet my new classmates and start learning more things in my field again. Getting my nerd on. Only thing is the Oscars is tmrw and I will miss it for the first time in god knows how many years :( "I-landsproblem" I know.  Jen & Jess, please enjoy it a little extra for me - ok?! ;)

February has been filled with many exciting things. Everything from sailor parties to Valentines celebration to silent discos to hosting the Red bull conference to jumping in the rock pools at Springbrook national park to saying goodbye to the last bartender (that was working when I started @ Stingers) to having cocktail training sesh with the Leblon Cachaça people to finding my new fav breakfast place and getting to know numerous amazing people - besides working my ass off! I figured out I've only had about 15 days off this year so far. Haha. Workaholic, yep that's me!

We're finally moving on Thursday. Not very far, but I should really start packing anyway :P Mom, you know how slow I am with these things. Haha.Will be same address as before, just another unit number (234). Glad we're staying in Trilogy. It's a great place to live :)  Jamie will be back from Thailand on Thursday as well so at least I don't have to do all the moving myself. Anyone else who'd like to offer a helping hand are more than welcome ;) We could make a game/party out of it! Haha.

Some new exciting projects are also in the making. Will tell you more about them if and when they actually take off.

Sorry for being such a slowpoke when it comes to updating you of my life here in Australia. I haven't had much time to spend in front of the computer in the last few months. Still haven't even put up all the pictures from Mom's visit - and for a little photo-nerd like me that's pretty serious. Haha. Will try to better myself. Try being the operative word.

Love you guys! xoxox

New semester

I'm not sure how interested you guys are about my uni life in terms of what I'm actually learning about - but I am ;) this is some of the things I will be learning about in the next few months:

1204HSL Introduction to Event Management
Events have long played an important role in human society. Whether they be personal celebrations, festivals, carnivals, or fairs, societies the world over have enjoyed organizing and attending events. Moreover, the event industry has been the business growing success story of the past decade. All events are dynamics and challenging management environments that require expertise in several business disciplines, together with an understanding of the social and cultural impacts on stakeholders. This course will introduce the student to the emerging field of event management.

1003MKT Introduction to Marketing
Marketing is everywhere, everyday and is the process that facilitates the exchange of products and services for the benefit of individuals, groups, organizations and society as a whole. Central to this course is the consumer's perspective, and while you are a student you are also an active consumer in the marketing process, so you will appreciate the approach we take in presenting this course.
There are two key components to marketing. Firstly it can be thought of as a philosophy, an attitude, a perspective or a management orientation focusing on customer satisfaction. Secondly, it is an organizational function and a set or processes for creating, communicating and delivering value for customer and managing long term customer relationships so as to benefit the organization and it's stakeholders in dynamic environments. The study of marketing provides fascinating insight into how organizations create, distribute, promote and price their goods and services to facilities satisfying exchange relationships.

1001HSL Foundation studies
This course will examine the inter-relationships between tourism, hospitality, event and sport under the overarching concept of leisure. It will investigate participation trends, policy frameworks, employment opportunities and management issues within these sectors.

1220HSL Information Systems for Services Industries
This course focuses on the information systems that support the tourism, leisure, hotel and sport industries. It provides the student with a theoretical knowledge of the ways in which information technology is transforming these industries and the likely impacts of technology growth in the future. Students will develop an understanding of how different information system technologies can be applied to achieve specific business goals.

Endings and new beginnings

I've been such a good girl today. Honestly, I feel on top of the game - which is much more than I can say about the other international students who gathered today, when orientation week for the internationals kicked off. So many confused faces! Haha. Although it will be tough to go back into study mode after over 3 months of summer vacation I'm confident I will have a great time back at uni this semester! I'm so ready to get new knowledge peppered into my brain. And with only 2 days/week at uni I think I'll be sweet :) I still have 2 more weeks of freedom though. Two wonderful weeks that I plan to take full advantage off. Especially since the past weeks have been filled with drama. For better and for worse. Can't really go into details, but know that I'm well and safe. As for the others... Haha just kidding. It's been a lot of drama going on though and I wish it would stop. I also wish more people knew how to behave. Always baffles me how some think certain types of behaviors are ok.

Annnnnnyway. Enough said about that. I don't want to get all worked up. Totally unnecessary. Tomorrow is Valentines day and it will be a wonderful day! 

Love you all so much!! Don't know what I'd do with out you!

Você fala português?

Even though there are still a few more weeks until uni takes off again, I can't help but to feel the pressure slowly but surely begin to fester in my body. It could be the fact that all my friends studying at other universities around the world have already started their spring semester and keep posting things about it on facebook. Or the fact that if I had gone home to Sweden now I would have been graduating this semester with my fellow Tourists.. You take your pick. I shouldn't even have to worry too much though, since I'm taking first year subjects this semester. I should be more than ok with the work load, even if I'm taking 6 classes this semester :P I did tell you I'm taking a class in Portuguese on the side right?! So much for taking it easy. Haha. Wed nights/Thur mornings will be spent online talking over video chat with my fellow Portuguese classmates. Sweet. At least I'm learning a new language. Not too shabby. I must say I feel pretty ambitious when I think about it! :)

New Girl

So funny!

Missing piece

Certain days it's just a tiny bit harder to not miss home. Like today. My own Mom's birthday - and I'm not there - AGAIN. I can't help but feel a little bit like a failure for missing out on all these special occasions with family and friends. I know I'm creating new things and friendships here but as they say... the grass is always greener on the other side! How can you not end up feeling like you're missing out? Can someone with the answer please tell me?! It's the constant thing in my life. Being torn between different worlds. I try to live here and now - but how the hell are you supposed to do that when the people in your life are spread out all over the world?? Grr. My great great aunt once told my grannie that sometimes it's ok to miss someone. You are lucky to have someone you care that deeply about that it actually hurts to be away from them. You are even luckier if you have someone who misses you back.

So with that being said, I'm going to do these following things for the next few months before I once again get to see my all my Swedes:

Maybe you should do the same? :) 

So the past few days have been kind of a blur. Not drunken blur, I assure you. Just a blur because I've been working my ass off doing doubles every day and the days just seem to mush together. We've had the lovely people from a music festival called Big Day Out staying with us at the hotel and as always that is reason for us to really show we have our shit together in the bar. Since it's mostly rockers at this particular festival I had no idea who anyone was, unlike others of my fellow Stingers. That probably worked in my favor though as I treated all of them with the same hospitality as I usually do and tried to do my up most for all of them to be happy campers. I thought most of them were the roadies/managers etc, turns out I was hanging out with most of the actual bands playing at the thing all weekend. Oh well. Happy unknowingly bliss I guess.

After all my hard work it felt incredible nice to enjoy a relaxing Thermal massage at spaQ (our new spa at the hotel). My brand new umbrella broke like 3 times on the way to QT (which is about 2,5 blocks from my building) until it finally died on me right when I was crossing the street outside the hotel. Completely soaked I entered the lobby. Probably looked like a drenched cat. Wouldn't be the first time! Anyways. This massage was unreal. I want to go back and get more and more and then some. Learned that (who would have guessed?!) - I have too much tension in my body - and that this much tension in a person is not normal - so I should probably look into A)getting massages regularly B) try some acupuncture or C) ingest magnesium in some form. Not once did she explicitly say: try to stress less. Haha. Realistically speaking though, yes - relaxation is good - stressing is bad. Get onto it woman! I'll try my best and let you know how it goes ;)

So after this beautiful little spoil-myself-rotten-episode at the spa I had to venture back out in a stormy rain-flooded Surfers Paradise. Now this is when you truly notice you are a spoiled brat. You take a cab home from the spa because you don't feel like getting soaked prior to looking at yet another luxury apartment to live in for the next 6 months of your stay (as a student) in Australia.

With that being said; I think we finally found our new place today. Pure joy! When we stepped in I just knew. Like last time. "This is our new home!" It's such a relief. Cross your fingers for us! We want the owners to accept us as permanent residents of this lovely new home.

Being a happy camper again, with one less issue to deal with, Jamie and I settled in watching old movies like Face/Off while the rain was drumming away on the outside. Also waiting for it to mellow out so I could go see my lovely Nicole and play for a bit @ Black Coffee Lyrics. I miss my little American being all chirpy and wise behind the bar. Making me laugh hearing about new & old adventures that this little vixen gets caught in on a regular basis. She never ends surprising me. Which, to me, is a pretty damn fine quality in a person. Needless to say it was a great end to the afternoon and start of the night.

Speaking of nighttime pleasures - last night we had cocktail training at work which as always is a tone of fun. We had Mr Jason Crawley teach us about the "7 drinks you must try before you die". Pretty catchy, huh? He's such a funny guy. I remember him from my first training sesh at Stingers when I was brand new and he was telling us the history of alcohol and joked about both Scandos and Americans - making both me and ms Nicole highly bee-ish and ready to sting back. All in good fun, of course. He is a great teacher when it comes to the history of our business and I wish he was around more often so I could pick his brain.

Either which way - I feel like I'm just babbling on here about things you might not even care about. I have to say one more thing though and that is I'M SO SORRY I'M TERRIBLE AT GETTING BACK/KEEPING IN CONTACT WITH PEOPLE at the moment. Working crazy hours, not having working internet at home and being on summer holidays is not the best combo when it comes to staying on top of all your relationships. I'm truly sorry for that guys. Not my intention AT ALL. I'll try to better myself now when internet seems to be up and running again!

Lots of love,

Ylver / Ylv / Sweet Y / Princess Leia / Avly and well - unless you didn't get it - Ylva!

New year new drama

So this year didn't start off exactly as planned. The first week of 2012 has been eventful to say the least. Many people seem to have had a rough start to 2012. Could it be because this is the year when the world is ending and we're all preparing subconsciously for the apocalypse? I think not. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. A lot of bad things apparently. Hopefully this has just been a way to clear all the bad things of 2012 out of the way - so we can continue on and have a great rest of the year. I say hopefully cause I try to remain positive. The realistic side of me knows we can't live a whole year without some drama along the way. It's just how life is. Still, I have high hopes for 2012. I think it can be a great year if we let ourselves go and run freely.