Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things -
Why it's hard to buy gifts for friends
apparently, the more you know someone, the harder it is to buy presents for them. the december edition of the journal of consumer research suggests that familiarity is a killer.
reading this article got me to thinking about my recent birthday.
there seems to be an increasing trend of less gift giving. even by those considered to be a part of the extreme inner circle.
maybe its harder. i dont think so. i think its just laziness on behalf of my males who think they can get away with a smile and a wink.
i made a list .. those i would have expected something from and how they did;
mom.
usual behaviour - something i have lusted after before the day and then flowers/card/song on the day.
this year - check.
present provided before birthday, song on day.
dad.
usual behaviour - perhaps a card. phone call.
this year - check.
no card but phone call received.
brother ewi.
usual behaviour - phone call or text. present arrives sometime (he lives in london so time factor added in).
this year - check.
text (so i called him) and present in the mail.
brother jazel.
usual behaviour - phone call or text. sometimes a card.
this year - check-ish.
simple text. no response to my response. christmas present decreasing in size daily.
man i am dating
usual behaviour - phone call. also has previously provided wonderful presents i may or may not have hinted at. received birthday present that took a lot of thought and was personally tailored to his current object of enjoyment ('65 impala).
this year - FAIL.
phone call in the morning. good. turned up to evening drinks. good. no present. apparently he got me what i asked for. seems that was nothing.
best friend - sarah
usual behaviour - text, email, phone call.
this year - check +
phone call, text and present. very very good. gets extra large present for christmas.
friend - nell
usual behaviour - (bearing in mind we are new-ish friends) - phone call, in person greeting, present.
this year - check ++
early present, greeting in person, bottle of veuve clicquot. gets extra large present for christmas.
moral of this story.
yes, how much i love you is based on what you buy me for my birthday.
you can go a long way with a smile. you can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.
i've been thinking about how i usually (lets not be totally fat headed) get what i want.
and its not always through asking straight out. and i dont bully everyone into giving into my wishes.
its just somehow, i usually end up with pretty much exactly what i wanted.
'i finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it'
-- rita mae brown
i have a new job.
well not a new new job.
i have been in my new job for about 6 months now. but i was in my old job 5 and a half years.
so you can see why this one is new.
not only is it new, but if my old job had a stress and responsibility level of 6 then this one is about a 0. a big fat round zero.
and its not for lack of trying. but hey - i am a contractor now. and its not really my responsibility to find the work - just to do it when it comes in.
the money is good, although some days i am really tempted to call in sick and race off all over the country spending my squillions on doing really cool things, and a lot of shopping!
speaking of doing really cool things .......
i learnt to dive. yes, me.
the original whale. oh yea.
at one stage (my near heaviest) i was 147kg. i say near heaviest as i stopped weighing myself after that. but i seem to remember buying another pair of trousers. a larger pair.
my friend nell. shes the greatest. shes been instrumental in getting me off the couch and out of the house this year. and guess what. now i weigh 95kgs. and i'm closer to my goal than my starting weight. go me!
so anyways, back to the cool stuff. we went to fiji. for a week. and it was warm and sunny.
i was petrified. actually of more than just the diving. but i did it. and it was amazing. we wanted to go back about a month later. but we were too scared to ask our bosses straight out for more time off (shes a contractor too - for the same company). and the bloody fijian military thought they might kick up a stink and it looked like they were going to have a coup.
so the moral of this story?
dont work for a huge corporate and get paid like a minion.
leave. become self employed. make loads of money.
and travel the world freaking yourself out and doing things you never thought you would.
believe me, its more fun than staring out a window.
div‧er /ˈdaɪ
vər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[dahy-ver] –noun
1. a person or thing that dives
2. a person who makes a business of diving, as for pearl oysters or to examine sunken vessels
3. any of several birds noted for their skill in diving
4. British. a loon
humans are not supposed to breathe underwater. but surprisingly, it actually feels pretty natural.
my friend nell and i decided that we wanted to go to fiji, so once the school holidays had ended and there were some reasonably priced flights available, we booked our tickets and secured a spot at the octopus resort on waya island. one of the main reasons for us choosing octopus was that nell had managed to talk me into agreeing to do my PADI open water course.
even before i left home, i knew that i was scared. of learning to dive. of diving in general.
i like the sea but i'm also scared of heights. and spiders. and snakes. and pretty much anything that i dont know anything about. so thats quite a lot.
i had already told lots of people that the reason i was going to fiji was to do my PADI open water course. so i could hardly freak out and not do it now - could i?
can you imagine the hassle my friends would give me? well maybe you could. but you havent met my friends. so imagine what you will and times it by 10 .. thousand.
being scared of lots of things means that i have had a bit of time to think about how to still do the things that are exciting and cool. the way i normally get around my fears is to try and imagine that they dont exist and just push myself.
just get on the plane. just get on the boat. just climb that step. that kind of thing.
dont think about it and before i know it, i'm doing it!
before we left new zealand, there were rumblings of a fijian military coup. even our ten foot tall and bulletproof prime minister helen clark was asking for additional security around her attendance at the pacific forum. we kept an eye on the ministry of foregn affairs safe travel website and decided we werent going to be in any danger. bugger.
it could have been a very good excuse for me not to complete this trip and to be able to delay this diving thing for a while. but alas, no travel advisories were posted and realistically - if things got rough - they would probably target the forum first!
so we jump on our air pacific flight, shoot over to nadi and step out into warmth!!
leaving new zealand in october for fiji is something that i would recommend to all kiwis. go and get some sun!
even though it was overcast in nadi, and slightly moist and very humid, it felt so good. we stripped off any jerseys we had and proceeded to the hotel we had booked for the night to change into our swimsuits and jump straight in the pool. even the water was warm! from there, enough time to get changed and mosey on down the road to ed's bar for dinner ($50.00 for 3 courses + drinks for the two of us) and lots of beers and games of pool.
the next morning, we were collected by the shuttle bus for the resort at 8:30. they drove us over to lautoka to the transfers office. but we had to wait for nearly 2 hours.
now lautoka is an interesting town. be warned, if someone asks you for your name and then pulls out a package of sticks, it will cost you. this seems to be a ruse for the tourists - you will have your name carved on a canoe or an oar or the like and it will cost you around $10 - $20FJD. unless you catch them quickly and dont give them your name or say no thank you before they start the carving.
anyway, it doesnt matter because i was really feeling like i was on holiday. as soon as we got packed back into the van and taken to the wharf, i started to get nervous. that was a bit weird. but i knew what it was.
so we arrived at the island after a boat trip of around an hour and a half. the photo on the left shows the bay on which octopus is located - its called likuliku bay and it was the most beautiful thing that i had ever seen.
we had started chatting to the people on our transport van and their faces reflected mine. huge smiles and absolute pleasure at what we had only seen on the internet. this was even better.
the water in the bay was crystal clear and extremely blue. i couldnt see anything bigger than my hand so the shaking stopped and i was able to breathe in a sigh of relief and jump off the boat and onto the warm white sand.
the staff at the resort were so welcoming and full of smiles - i was sure that nothing bad ever happened here.
we strolled on down to the dive shop and rented out snorkel gear ($5 for the entire length of our stay!) and i got all the forms i needed for my course. you know the old medical questions etc. i met jodi at the the dive shop. she is one of the instructors at octopus - and her manner put me at ease from the start. she told me we could get it all done in 4 days and that i had 5 pool dives and 5 open water dives to complete. plus i had to watch some really corny videos and complete some knowledge tests but that none of it was going to be a stretch.
the first pool dive was going to be the next day - and sam and martin from our boat (couple #1) were going to be doing it as well - yayyyy!
right - the day of reckoning. can i shove a regulator in my mouth and submerge myself? will i float to the top? will i survive? once again, my law of doing everything first and just jumping in worked well. i had my wetsuit on first, tanks strapped on and jodi told me to put my regulator in and just snorkel around for a while.
WOW! 5 seconds later i had the big grin - this i can do! first hurdle overcome - i know i can breathe underwater. then we sink to the bottom of the pool and hang around there for a while.
the next day was to be our first open water dive. i woke up in the morning and felt ill. not just because i was nervous. but the night before was sams birthday and in order to forget my fears, i participated in the consumption of 3 bottles of vodka. i was a little more than slightly hungover. damn.
diving with a hangover is not fun. dry mouth. headache. queasy tummy.
getting into my wetsuit, i was wondering what on earth i had got myself into. nell was standing around the dive shop throwing a few funny comments and all i wanted to do was smack her and tell her to go away. so i snapped at her instead and then just ignored her as i made my way down the beach to the dive boat. we got out to the dive site and the water was clear - but i still couldnt see the bottom well enough. and i couldnt tell if there was anything down there that was going to eat me. 
but i james bonded (backwards roll) into the water and then swam around to the line to wait for the others. by this time i had figured, the faster i get in, the faster i can get out.
the others joined me at the front of the boat and we started to descend. but i wouldnt sink!! i was pulling myself down the line trying to remember to equalise and trying to get further down - but none of it was working right! joe, one of the dive masters, came back up for me and led me down by the fins and kept reminding me to equalise. we turned around onto our bellies and he grabbed my hand and led me around the face of the wall. we made it down about 12 meters and i was sure i was having problems with my ears and i would never be able to dive again. yayyy! finally an excuse!!!
about this time, sam had decided that she had well had enough. she wanted to go up and i just pretended my ears hurt a little more than they did. so i went up too.
we surfaced - to find that we had been at 12 meters for 22 minutes.
see - breathing underwater isnt just for fish
p.s. coming home from this trip, i felt compelled to share my travels in more ways than one. for a brief travel log, take a look at my yasawas report on globosapiens.
