Change is in the Air

Hello strangers! Blogging has certainly taken a back seat this year, but that's not to say that life hasn't been interesting. In fact, these first few months of 2016 have been incredibly busy and exciting. As I mentioned in my last post, change is very definitely in the air and I'm really looking forward to sharing these changes with you - they're almost ready so watch this space! You'll soon understand where all my blogging time has been going recently!

In the mean time, it seems like the only time I get to blog these days is when I'm in another country! I've just finished off a work trip in Singapore and I must say, it's great to be home! I don't think I've had a chilled weekend at home since we got back from holidays in January - it seems like every weekend we've had exciting, fun things to do (work travel, weddings, the Grape Escape, road trips and showing foreigners around Cape Town). It's all been a lot of fun but after almost 3 months of non-stop busyness, the introvert in me is crying out for a few days where I don't have to see anyone (bar those closest to me), make polite conversation or plan anything. Once I've done that I'm sure I'll start to feel slightly more normal again!

With all this travelling I've been doing, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite things about travelling:

• Sunrise or sunset from the air.
• The "stars" in the Emirates overnight flights.
• Being exposed to new people and new cultures.
• And getting exposed to new ways of looking at the world and seeing how people from other countries solve problems differently.
• Getting to see (and photograph) fun new things.

Here is a sneak peak of some of the pictures from my Singapore trip - keep an eye out for the full range of them coming soon.

Sunset from the air.

Singapore trip - Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

Singapore trip - Bright bridges at night.

Happy (Belated) Leap Day!

I started writing this post on Feb 29th but as you can see, I didn't get around to finishing it. However, I thought I'd finish it off and share it anyway, as it's been a while since my last post!

February 29th - not a date that you bump into in the course of a regular year. However, this year is special, so happy (belated) Leap Day everyone - and happy birthday to all you February 29th babies!

This year is gearing up to be a fun year with lots of celebrations, planning and new beginnings and as such, I think it's extra appropriate that 2016 is a Leap Year. It's the type of year that comes around once in a while. The type of year where you look at the special times the lie in wait for you - time with family and time with friends, planning and celebrating and enjoying life together and you wish you could set your life on pause, just for a few moments, to savour everything that has happened and look forward to things that have yet to pass.

Earlier in February we went to the wedding of our friend's Chez and Heiko. It was such a privilege to be there with them and celebrate with them as they start out life together as newly-weds. It was such a special, joy filled weekend and made even more amazing by the fact that even though this particular bunch of friends is scattered around South Africa, we were all able to be there to celebrate together. We spent the weekend at a place called Platbos, these wonderfully cosy cabins on the edge of a dam. A weekend surrounded by friends who all just click and celebrating the wedding of two of our group was enough to make my heart feel all warm and fuzzy! Thanks guys, for a wonderful time - can't wait for the next one!

Our log cabins at Platbos

Our log cabins at Platbos

Frosty and I before the wedding.

Zel, me and Izzy before Chez and Heiko's Wedding

Special friends!

Night time photos at Platbos 

Another night time shot

Playing with light and night time photography - I set things up and pressed the button while Frosty shone the
torch like a pro to give us some of these shots!

Enjoying the water at Bainskloof Pass.

More special friends!

And more special friends!

I've got a few exciting things happening over the course of the next few weeks and months. Some of the exciting things are obvious, such as wedding planning! Other things are currently a bit more secret and I'm really looking forward to sharing these with you, however right now they're still a work in progress. I'm hoping that the first thing is going to be ready in a few weeks and once it's ready, you'll be among the first to know, so watch this space! It will definitely explain why I've been a bit quieter than usual on my blog, but that's all I'm saying for now!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know that this post is a bit early, but since I'm in the airport with not a lot to do (apart from some bug-fixing, writing some postcards and shopping to while away my 7 hour layover), I thought I may as well also write a post and wish all of my readers a happy Valentine's Day! My Valentine's day is going to start off in Dubai Airport, which isn't so bad. So far, I've had a Valentine's Cupaccino, and it isn't even Valentine's Day yet - although it's getting closer and closer!

I have to say, the thing I'm looking forward to most this Valentine's Day is getting back to Cape Town and knowing that I'm home for a while and, most importantly, getting to give my fiancé (I'm still getting used to calling Frosty that!) a big Valentine's Day hug and celebrate 7 years of being together! I don't know what the rest of the day will hold once I'm back in Cape Town, but to be honest, as long as I'm with Frosty I'll be happy!

And so - happy Valentine's Day to all of you and I hope that you have a wonderful day celebrating with loved ones!

My Phone Is Gone...

Sho, it seems like I've spent my life in airports recently - in the last month I've spent 3 weekends in transit at airports all over and next weekend will be the 4th weekend in a row! It will also hopefully be the last weekend for a while where I spend the majority of my time travelling (yay!).  With all this travel, it's been a few busy weeks. So, last Friday when Frosty and I got home, we decided that we'd go to a movie at the Waterfront.

To cut a very long story short, somewhere between arriving at the Waterfront, watching a terrible movie (The Hateful Eight, for those who want to avoid watching a terrible movie), getting some delicious cinnabons and paying for parking at the Waterfront, I very strongly suspect that my phone got pick pocketed from right out my handbag! 

On any day, I would have been upset. Since this happened the day before I had to fly out to Italy, I was incredibly frustrated and upset. I have had a cell phone since the age of 12 and this is the FIRST TIME EVER that I have had my phone disappear on me. I don't remember taking my phone out of my handbag between arriving at the waterfront and getting back to the car after paying for parking. My suspicion that I was pick-pocketed was made stronger when we tried calling my cell and it was off. It was made even more stronger when we found a very helpful waterfront security guard who asked if we had called the phone, and when we said we had, but it was off, he mentioned that that was bad news.

And so - at 11:30 the night before I had to fly out to Italy, I was not a particularly happy chappy. Luckily, I was able to get a pay as you go sim from Vodacom at the airport and I am now using a spare phone of Frosty's which will do the job until I get back home next week and can sort out a sim swap back onto my current number. And until I can get back, the most I can do is make sure I enjoy Italy :)

The view from the plane as I was flying in to the Czech Republic almost 2 weeks ago.

'Tis the Season

It's less than a week until Christmas - can you believe it? At the beginning of last week, my manager mentioned to me that support was all under control and I didn't need to come in to work on Monday and Tuesday next week if I didn't want to and would I like to take those two days off as well. After thinking about it for a while, checking what is coming up and what I need to prepare for next year, I decided that since I had some extra days of leave saved up, I thought I might as well take them and I'll just work extra hard to get as much as possible done before I head off on Friday (best Christmas present ever - 2 days of extra holiday!).

I always love this time of the year, it's probably my favourite holiday and so, I thought I'd share some of my favourite things about Christmas:

• Decorating the Christmas tree (with Christmas Carols as background music).
• Finishing off Christmas shopping and then spending an afternoon or two wrapping presents (while listening to Chrismas Carols).
• Time spent catching up with family and friends - since we live so far away from home, any family time is extra-precious.
• Swimming costumes and long summers days spent at the pool or beach.
• Ice creams, watermelon, G&Ts.
• Christmas carols - the old stuff, the new stuff and Carols by Candlelight.
• Delicious food (my folks make the best Christmas ham you'll ever eat!)
• Having a bit of time to just chill and think and reflect.

What are some of your favourite things about Christmas?

Quote #13: It Is Better To Believe

Some of you may know that I've recently spent 2 weeks in Rio working on a project. Now, in my field, you don't often find yourself among other women and it's almost unheard of to work in a group that contains only women, but during my first week, this was my reality. Myself, our client technical lead and two of the engineers in Rio spent our first week finalising items for our project and tying up loose ends in preparation for the plant go-live. It was such a privilege to work almost exclusively with a group of ladies for the first week and it coincided with me reading a very interesting book on women's confidence (The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman). 

I really enjoyed this book for a number of reasons, but the main reason is that it has made me aware of differences between the way that men and women approach their jobs. I think the most important thing that it's made me aware of is that, women on the whole are much more risk averse and much less willing to jump into something that they have minimal skill/exposure/experience in. In other words, us ladies will only jump into the deep end when we've learnt how float and then how to swim, when we've learnt all the different swimming strokes and when we're sure that we need to be swimming free-style and not butterfly. On the opposite end of the scale, men on the whole are much more likely to jump into the deep end without any idea of how to swim, they'll somehow learn doggy paddle in order to keep their heads above water and then they'll improvise their style until they're swimming free-style with everyone else. 

At this stage of my career and for so many other young, professional women out there, I think it's really important to know that often, in order to move to the next position, we don't need to know exactly how to do the job. Instead we need to be willing to jump into the deep end without knowing how to swim. We need to remember that we're not the only ones in the pool/dam/sea and that there are people and things out there that will help us to swim as we go along. 

If you're interested in reading the Confidence Code, click here (it's worth the read, I promise!)

Finally, I hope that for the ladies out there who are wondering whether they're ready for that next role, this has inspired you to just go for it and dive into the deep end. And for the gents out there who are reading this - please keep in mind that you may need to give some extra encouragement to your girlfriends, wives, female friends or female colleagues to jump into that next role even though they don't feel quite ready for it.

Quote #12: Opportunities are Usually...

Years ago I was recommended a great book to read. It's called Outliers and is written by a chap called Malcolm Gladwell. I had high expectations for this book* and I wasn't disappointed when I finally got around to reading it. I think that one of the most important messages Outliers delivers is that success doesn't just come to people - success is a combination of circumstance, experience and hard work. People who grab those opportunities (and who have a bit of luck on their side by being born at the right time, in the right year, or having the right cultural background) and work hard at making the most of these opportunities (it's said that around 10,000 hours of practice makes you an expert at something) are the ones who become successful. If you get a chance to read this book, definitely give it a try!

* I have also read a book called The Tipping Point by the same author, which is also another interesting read!

Life Lately

You may have noticed that I haven't had a chance to blog much recently, but I finally managed to put up the rest of my pictures from my trip to Germany and I'm hoping to get around to editing and getting through some of the other pictures that I've taken this month, so watch this space in case I find a few more good pics to share. Since I haven't had much of a chance to blog, I thought I'd update you on what's been happening in my life lately.

Basically my life has been a whole lot of work since I got back from Germany. Not overtime work, just busy-every-day work. It feels like I'm finally getting on top of everything that I need to do which is a really exciting feeling! In between work, the weekends have also been rather busy - for the last two weekends Frosty's folks have been in Cape Town and so we spent some wonderful times with them - chilling in Stellies and exploring Babylonstoren this last weekend and visiting Kagga Kamma Nature Reserve the weekend before last. Then the weekend before that, some very special friends of ours got married in Elgin and we had a fantastic party at the wedding reception and a lovely weekend away re-connecting with friends who we hadn't seen for a while. I always underestimate how busy October gets - the last two years it's probably been my busiest month of the entire year.

Exciting news on the work front is that in just under a month I'm going to be heading off to Rio for work (I definitely landed with my bum in the butter with the project I'm working on and this is the third awesome place that I get to go to for this project!). One exciting thing that I have learnt is that South Africans don't need a visa to go to Brazil. However, we do need to have updated Yellow Fever vaccines. They have to be done no later than 10 days before you leave, so I'm going to be getting mine either this week or next week.

In between all of this business, I've followed the student protests against fee increases last week with interest. I've read a bunch of articles, read status updates of students and wondered if I would have been part of the protests, either getting involved or watching from the sidelines, had I still been at UCT...I'll never know, but one of my favourite bloggers wrote this piece after attending the protests in Stellies on Friday, which is so beautiful.

Germany Trip: Cologne

Hi everyone, I'm sorry I've been so quiet lately! As you may know, I recently got back from a work trip to Germany and so I thought I would share a few of my pics and experiences in a few posts, starting off with my trip there and my weekend in Cologne.

I left work at lunch time of Friday afternoon and after a quick stop at home to drop some things off and meet Frosty, I got dropped at the airport a little earlier than I had expected. But that's fine by me, since I much prefer arriving somewhere early as opposed to screeching in at the last minute. It gave me a chance to get all checked in and, since I really did have quite a bit of time to spare, I decided to use the chance to get a haircut! There's nothing like a haircut to make you feel better and a few days before my hair had reached that I-need-to-get-cut-yesterday phase, so it was a great way to pass the time!

Ready to fly after a new haircut.

A quick fight later and I had landed in Joburg with a few more hours to kill. This time I found myself a quick snack and then took a browse around Exclusive Books. I had been looking for a good book to read for ages and when I caught sight of Sheryl Sandburg's book, Lean In, I knew that that was the book that I would be taking along with me. I think the fact that I had completed more than half the book before I had landed in Cologne is indicative of how good a read this book is - I'll hopefully be sharing a bit more about my thoughts on the book later, as it deserves a post all of it's own.

I sat next to a lovely lady on my way there and she was the perfect seat mate - friendly and chatty for a little while and then quiet when it was time to be quiet. For a while after take off the weather was quite stormy and lightning-y and not particularly nice and I thought I'd try to photograph lightning - in between black screens of pictures that didn't catch any lightning, I caught one or two pics where the lightning is catching the clouds which I'm pretty excited about! This one below is probably my favourite one and with a bit of editing, it's come out really nicely - don't you think?

Lightning and clouds from a plane - I was contemplating whether I should go through the effort of
taking my camera out to try and get some pics of the lightning and I'm really chuffed that, in the end,
I decided to get my camera out!

My investment in one of those awesome neck pillows also really helped and I think I got about 4 hours or solid sleep in, which is a record for me as I don't usually sleep comfortably on a plane! We arrived in Munich in the early hours of Saturday morning and I loved seeing how green and "farmy" the countryside around Munich was, as we were descending to land. I had a quick layover in Munich and then an hour flight to get to Cologne, which had a more "foresty" feel to it when we were flying in.

One of the things that first struck me about Germany is that it's a really beautiful country and it immediately appealed to me for a reason I can't quite pinpoint. 

One of the best things about being able to travel is meeting up with friends who come from, or who have moved to, different parts of the world. When I went to Italy I was able to meet up with my "Italian sister" which was a really special time. This time I was able to meet up with a friend from varsity who had moved to Germany a few months before. Kim and I both used this opportunity to see a bit of Germany, she got to come and explore a bit of Cologne with me over the first weekend I was there. 

German countryside.

Kim and I - great to catch up with friends in foreign cities!

We spent two happy days exploring Cologne. 

The Kölner Dom (aka Cologne Cathedral) is one of Germany's biggest tourist attractions and it really is an amazing sight! I had the most incredible view of the Dom from my hotel room and waking up and going to sleep with the Dom as a view was an incredibly special thing! Inside they have some beautiful stained glass windows, some of them older and some slightly newer. Kim and I both really enjoyed the window that was made up of hundreds of identically sized squares of different coloured glass, that are meant to represent pixels. This, of course, appealed to the engineer in both Kim and me!

Inside the Kölner Dom - beautiful arches.

There were beautiful stained glass windows everywhere.

Inside the Kölner Dom - modern stained glass windows that look like pixels. 

I always love seeing the beautiful candles that get lit within churches and the Dom was no different.

After walking across a bridge filled with Love Locks, we decided on a whim to try and get to the top of a building that had a stream of people walking around it. We managed to find the building and 28 stories higher up, we got to the top of a cylindrical building and had a wonderful panoramic view of Cologne. Even though it had started to rain by this stage, it was lovely to see 

Strolling along the Rhine in Köln.

Love Locks in Köln.

In France, they apparently removed 45 tons worth of Love Locks from a bridge
where people followed a similar concept - the weight of the locks hadn't
been factored in to the design of the bridge and they were starting to affect
the structural integrity of the bridge!

View of the Dom from 28 stories up.

Getting creative with rain.

When we got back to the hotel on the first evening, after stopping at the shops to get a bite for dinner, we set up a picnic inside our hotel room and had a really great time taking pictures of the most breathtaking sunset. It just kept getting better and better!

Reflections on a roof top.

View of Köln from a distance - you can see the Dom on the right.

Kim at sunset.

Getting creative with framing my pictures.

Me and my reflection taken by Kim.
Thanks Kimi! 

This sunset just kept getting better and better!

One of the highlights of the weekend was a visit to the Lindt Chocolate Museum on the Sunday! One thing that was really great about both the Museum and the Dom was that they had information available in English! It made a huge difference being able to read the pamphlets and information boards in English (and gave me a chance to brush up on my German, with an easy translation of English right next to it!). I'm sure the question on everyone's mind is "so, did you get free chocolate at the museum?" the answer to which is "YES!". The museum really was fascinating and covered a huge variety of subjects from chocolate packaging and marketing to the process of obtaining cocoa beans to making chocolate (complete with machines) to packing chocolate and finally, the history of chocolate. Oh, and did I mention they also have a small hot-house where they grow actual cocoa trees?! AND we got to see first hand how they make those hollow figurines. All in all, a very worthy visit!

As a final activity on Sunday afternoon, Kim and I met up with one of her classmates who was studying relatively close by, which was also great. Even though I had only spent two days in Germany, hearing a South African accent in amongst the chatter of people was a very welcome thing indeed!

Kim outside the Lindt Chocolate Museum in Köln.

Me outside the Lindt Chocolate Museum.

To make the hollow figurines, chocolate is put into moulds and the
moulds are then put into these heads. The actual heads rotate in a circle
and then so does the entire 'X' shape, ensuring that the chocolate is
distributed evenly while it is setting. In the 'olden days' the chocolate figures
were put into metal moulds, but plastic is much cheaper and easier to recycle!

Quote #9: The Secret Of...

This week the quotes in my diary focus on starting. Something. Anything. A big project or a small activity. And the quote above is one that really appeals to me. The project that I've been working on at work started out as this seemingly massive thing where the amount of work we had to do and the time it was going to take us seemed like a stretch. But here we are, 9 months after starting development work and we're putting the finishing touches on the software and getting ready for the software to be used in a production environment (ie with real-life people and real-life situations).

I think this is one of the benefits of the way that engineers are taught to think. We break a big, complex, impossible-sounding problem down into smaller manageable steps. This approach to problem solving allows us to achieve the seemingly impossible. 

If you can break an impossible task down into a bunch of completely possible pieces and you complete all the possible pieces successfully then, surely your impossible task just became possible by virtue of completing all the smaller possible pieces... Try this approach next time you have to solve a problem and see if it helps!

Quote #8: We Must Use...

This week has been a really busy week (seems like they've all been really busy recently, I guess that's the joy of projects work). I have had the most incredible time in Cologne, Germany. I'll be sharing a few more posts on this a bit later I'm sure, but here's a quick summary for you.I first met up with one of my friends and spent the weekend exploring and then this week we have been training users on our software and then getting feedback from them.

My quote today focuses on the importance of time. When I was looking through my diary to find a quote, I saw this one and immediately thought of the Cologne Dom (which is the background of the picture above). The construction of this beautiful building started in 1248 and was halted in 1473 and once the work had restarted in the 19th century it was finally completed in 1880. For those who are too lazy to calculate, I'll summarise for you - from start to finish, this Cathedral took 632 years to build! That is an incredibly long time, can you just imagine the number of generations that helped to create and build this masterpiece? And can you imagine the project management of something this huge?!

I then started thinking about this in more depth and thought about how applicable this has been to me and my team in the course of our project. As we don't all meet in person very often, we have sometimes had to be very creative in terms of our time usage (such as having meetings and performing tests in parallel) in order to maximise the time we spend together and get the most benefit out of it. In some cases we have succeeded in managing our time creatively. In other cases, we have not been particularly creative in managing our time together, but hopefully we have learnt from it and can improve it at our next face-to-face meetings. I think the biggest learning from this trip is that as a project team, we need to insist that users have their days completely dedicated to performing the User Acceptance Tests and ideally we want the users to sit in the same office as us so that we can assist and clarify information when needed. If users sit in their own offices, there is a high probability that they will be distracted from testing with other plant issues that inevitably crop up and need urgent attention.

Feel free to share any suggestions for using time creatively below, I'd love to hear them!

Quote #7: All Communication Problems...

This photograph is one that I took of one of Nathan Sawaya's Lego Statues from when we visited 
The Art of the Brick in Cape Town earlier this year.

This week has been a hectic week, getting prepared for my trip to Germany (I can't believe I leave tomorrow!). Part of those preparations have involved making sure that our software is getting translated into German and displaying in German, instead of English.

At the beginning of the week, our German contact kept on feeding back that she was not seeing the majority of our translations appearing on her screen. And we kept on feeding back that all the provided translations have been incorporated and everything* should be displaying in German. The same message passed between us about 4 times with each of us standing their ground.

Eventually, we managed to get to the bottom of the issue, where we needed to change one small setting and then the translations displayed correctly and everyone was happy again.

I've definitely used this as a learning curve and I have a few ideas now of what to ask for in case something similar happens again so that instead of listening to reply, I can listen to understand and hopefully resolve things without each side having to repeat the same message over and over before figuring out the cause/problem. I think the most important thing about listening is listening actively and being able to ask questions that clarify things completely, rather than just accepting things at face value. It's something that I know I need to work on, but I hope I'm getting there!

* Barring small errors for spelling and/or missed translations

Quote #6: Gratitude

Shew, I'm a bit late with my quote of the week this week, but better late than never!

Gratitude. Isn't it interesting how sometimes we forget to be thankful and instead focus on what we don't have. I love that this quote cuts to the chase and makes us realise that if we are grateful for what we have, we see that we actually don't need all that much...

I also read an interesting post on gratefulness (here) which I think fits in quite nicely with this theme. And since there was a challenge at the end, here's what I'm grateful for:

• My Family: they were the people who knew me before I knew myself and helped to mould me into the person I am today. Although most of them live far away, we always have great fun when we're together.
  
• Frosty: the guy who gives the best hugs, has his own type of logic (Frost Logic) which he uses to teach people complex ideas, who adventures and explores with me, who challenges me and lets me challenge him. My friend and my favourite place.
  
• My Friends: from the adventure time family who are mainly in Cape Town to those who I don't see often and wish I could see more of, new friends and old friends and everyone in between. Whether it's a reason, season or lifetime, all of you bring out a different aspect in me and for that I am so grateful.
  
• My Work: I have learnt so much from my two different jobs - what I like and what I don't like. What I'm happy doing and what I will do my best to avoid. Qualities to keep or discard in the workplace. The opportunity to travel to cool places within my work and to interact with people from all over the world.
  
• My Privilege: the food that keeps my tummy happy, the roof over my head, the home that I live in, being able to drive to work in my own car and having enough money in my bank account to be able to do fun things every now and then.
  
• My Education: going to a wonderful co-ed junior school, earning a scholarship to a prestigious all-girls high school and then off to a university class where I was one of few girls and getting a degree that has allowed me to find well-paying jobs. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to learn skills that are incredibly valuable in this day and age.

So, those are a few of the things I'm grateful for...what are you grateful for? Feel free to tag me on Instagram or leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you!

Tea Time Win

A few weeks ago I entered in a competition run by Melissa Louise and Zomato to win a tea experience at O'ways Teacafe in Claremont. I promptly forgot all about it, but a few days later, my day was made when I found out that I had won one of the vouchers!

On a free Saturday morning, Frosty and I headed off to go and use up my voucher and we decided that since it was close to lunch, we may as well order lunch as well. 

Neither Frosty nor I are big tea fans (we both usually prefer coffee), but the tea-making ritual was so peaceful and unhurried and it definitely left me thinking that I could become more of a tea drinker, just to partake in that ritual a bit more regularly.

One of the things that we both noticed over the course of our meal and tea was that service was a key factor for O'ways. The staff were well trained and pleasant and the owner took her time at each table and mentioned just how important service was to them when she came to deliver our bill to us. As both Frosty and I spent some time working at a Four Seasons (which is a hotel chain renowned for it's service and attention to detail and where training is important for all staff), we often notice that South African restaurants are lacking in this department. However, O'ways impressed us and  when we get a chance I'd like to go back to test out some of their other teas (and maybe some coffee too!).

Thanks Melissa Louise, Zomato and O'ways Tea Cafe, it was awesome to take part and win a competition and I'm sure we'll be back to visit O'ways soon!

If I remember correctly, I got the Rooibos and Ginger tea 

We discovered the meaning behind the term Tealight Candle!

Frosty got the Kenyan Black Tea

We got some nibbles before our main dish arrived, they were delish!

Frosty got the Gnocchi with Pesto and it was scrumptious.

I got the Peasant Food - a hearty meal of a Veggie-soup type dish with a freshly baked roll - yum!