NEW ZEALAND TRIP POST: View From The Top Of The World

8/27



On the cruise



Well it’s Saturday and after a week of working it hard, it was time to play hard and take advantage of being in this completely beautiful part of the world.  As part of the Habitat for Humanity Global Village program, they like to offer a little R&R for the volunteers and today we had a full day of activities planned.

We kicked off the day riding the bus from where we were staying into the city of Auckland.  Once in the city, we boarded a cruise ship that was going to take us around the harbor.  The view of the city from the boat was incredible!   It was such a unique way to see everything and we even got to make two stops during our journey. 

Our first destination was Davenport.  The small beach town was gorgeous and overall our visit here was a relaxing one.  Everyone pretty much separated into smaller groups and went their separate ways when we docked in Davenport.  There were plenty of options for people to do while in this town.  My group just walked around exploring, checked out some of the shops and art galleries in the area, took advantage of some great photo opportunities, and had a few drinks at a local café.  Not a bad way to spend a sunny morning in New Zealand J

After Davenport, we got back on the boat and headed off to our next destination, Rangitoto Island.  Rangitoto Island is a volcanic island near Auckland.  Unlike Davenport, here there was only one thing to do and that was climb the volcano (don’t worry it was dormant).  As we started on our way up, there was a sign telling us it was approximately 1 hour to the top.  It was then that I realized, this whole hiking the volcano thing was going to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.  As we made our way up the lava rock covered trail, several things crossed my mind.  I thought of my hiking boots that were sitting on the floor in my hotel room since no one mentioned we would be climbing a mountain.  I cursed the fact that I thought wearing Ugg boots was the best idea for footwear because they were warm (it was like hiking in socks).  I contemplated just how out of shape I was.  At times, I even doubted that I would make it all the way to the top.  However, my overly competitive nature kept telling me I was not only going to keep going and make it but I was going to do it as quickly as I could. 

 As I looked at the city from the top of Rangitoto, all my other thoughts were gone and replaced with just how beautiful the scenery in front of me was.  Even though Rangitoto isn’t that high of a peak, for the brief time I spent at the top, I couldn’t help but feel on top of the world.  At that time, I felt like I could do anything.



Me at the top :)



Like I said, it’s not like I hiked Everest or something but standing at the top of Rangitoto Summit was validation that after everything I’ve been through, I’m still standing and even more importantly, I’m better than I’ve ever been.  Just like climbing the volcano, life is hard.  Sometimes you want to give up but you have to keep pushing to get to where you want to go.  There will be moments when you will doubt yourself.   There will be set backs.  Today it was footwear or my lack of physical fitness but in life it might be losing a relationship or job you didn’t get or just your perfect plan not quite turning out the way we thought it would.   Hopefully, the voices in your head will tell you that despite all the odds against you, if you want it bad enough then you have to keep going until you reach the top. 

NEW ZEALAND TRIP POST: Stretching Comfortable

8/26

Well it’s finally Friday and I made it through my first week with Habitat for Humanity!  With one week down and just one more week left, I find myself sitting here thinking back on the reasons why I decided to come on this trip in the first place.

Amazing Group of People!!!

When we had our first morning meeting before we started working, my leaders announced that we would be passing around a journal.  Each day someone would have to take the notebook at the morning meeting and write something in it before passing it off to someone new at the evening meeting.  By the end of the trip we all will have written something in the book.  There are no restrictions on what we can write and no criteria for what we have to so basically, anything goes.

When I got the book last night, I wasn’t sure what exactly to write.  I thought back to a post I wrote for this blog prior to coming on this adventure and felt a little inspired.  Before I left, I wrote that part of my reason for going on this trip was because I needed to be uncomfortable.  Well, for the past week everything I’ve been doing has been completely out of my element.  I’ve left the country, leaving behind the family and friends that I am used to and see on a regular basis.  I stepped out from behind my computer and my desk to spend my days working on a construction site doing work that is a million miles away from ordinary.  I don’t even hang my own pictures in my apartment, let alone hang roofing titles.  Even the food is different and a little scary for a cautious (not picky but not overly adventurous) eater.  I guess you can pretty much imagine that all this would add up to equal the complete definition of uncomfortable.  Well, if you gave me this description a week ago, I probably would have agreed with that statement but now I’m feeling a lot of things, however, uncomfortable isn’t one of them.



You can find friends where ever you go.



As I sit here and try to come up with something to write before I go to my meeting, I realized one very important fact.  This week I’ve learned that maybe I am a lot more capable than I ever thought I was.  I’ve discovered that people, even if they don’t know your back story, can still feel like they’ve known you forever in just an instant. New can be scary or different or challenging but maybe you have to go halfway around the world to see just how far your comfort zone really stretches.

NEW ZEALAND TRIP POST: Less is more

8/25

I have been gone for almost a week now and I’ve gotten a lot of emails from people asking things like how it is going and what I am doing.  I haven’t had a lot of time to respond but the truth is I’m not really sure how to.  Things have been amazing so far but more importantly they have been the good kind of unexpected.  I thought that on this adventure I would learn some new skills and try things I never imagined I would have but the real surprise for me is the people.  I’m on this trip with 20 other unique individuals each with their own distinctive traits and complex stories.  All of them are people I would have never met at any point in time during my everyday life.  I know those people back home emailing me want to hear some exciting story but for some reason I don’t think they will find the same kind of rush in the fact that I’m meeting new people as I am.

I’ve grown up in a small town.  Everyone knows you or your parents and more importantly, everyone knows your business.  You can run but you definitely can’t hide from your past and any mistakes you’ve ever made in your life.  When I came here, I thought maybe I could finally escape that person and be whoever I wanted to be, if only for a short time.  Today I realized I came half way around the world to finally find out that I am exactly who I want to be and that works.  For the first time, I feel like I don’t have to hide who I am, apologize for it, or excuse it.  I am completely comfortable with me.  I learned that over dinner. 

It had been another long day of hard work on the job site and I was really looking forward to a low key dinner at the hotel tonight.  Because I was working on something else, I got to dinner a little late tonight so my seating options were limited.  I finally found a seat at a table in the back of the room and sat down.  As I ate the Chinese food dinner that was ordered for us that night, I struck up a conversation with the gentleman next to me. 

Carlos is a 47 year old Mexican American who lives in LA.  I guess you could say he was about as completely opposite from me as you can get but I worked briefly with him the other day and I found him extremely interesting.  As I asked him about his life, he told me about his kids and his girlfriend back home.  He told me about his dogs, his job, and his house.  As he told me stories of his life, I started to realize that he was a very special person. 

He was such a simple man who had simple tastes and everything he needed in regards to his minimal materialistic lifestyle he had but he had an unquenchable thirst for human interaction.  You see, Carlos talked to everyone he met.  And by everyone, I mean every single person he came in contact with from the homeless person on the street that he met while he volunteered to the CEO of the company he worked for and so many more in between.  From each of these conversations, he learned from these people.  He took the knowledge they were willing to part with and used it in his own life. 

Personally, I found Carlos to be fascinating!  On the surface, the stories he told were nothing really spectacular but in a strange way they were.  I walked away tonight thinking that the chance to have met him was priceless.  In my normal life, I meet people all the time but I rarely remember them.  I will always remember Carlos.  I will remember that it doesn’t take a lot to be happy and that there is a whole world of people out there just waiting for you come up and strike up a conversation.  You might learn something or meet someone you wouldn’t have normally come in contact with.  All you have to do is be willing to listen to someone’s story.  I have to say that I LOVED listening to Carlos’ stories and I definitely think that this man made an impact on me.

Maybe no one will ever understand how amazing my interaction with these people is but if you want to know some of the important things that I’ve done, then getting to know someone like Carlos definitely falls into that category for me.  Just like he took wisdom from others, I learned from him.  I learned that happiness comes from liking who you are and the life that you have.  It doesn't have to be over the top or larger than life.  Sometimes less really is more and when you can be content with that, you can be happy.

Right vs. Right for Me

I thought today I would take a little break from my retroactive posting and talk a little bit about what’s been going on since I’ve been back from my escape of reality.  I will continue to tell you about my incredible experience in New Zealand but life goes on, no matter how long of a trip you take away from it.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve felt like a new version of me but sometimes the same old problems follow you everywhere.  Recently, I’ve come face to face with a crossroads decision that feels a little like déjà vu.  As I approach the fork in the road, I can go one way and do what’s right or I can go down the other path and do what I feel is right for me even if it doesn’t always line up with the “right decision”.  Tough choice huh?   

Honestly, what I want to do is follow what I feel is right for me but in the end I can’t help but shake the unavoidable truth that if you have do something wrong to get what you want, is it ever really worth it?  I guess you could say I’m showing a little maturity in my old age because I’m going to answer no.  The truth is that 99% of the time our lives are complicated.  Answers come in multiple choice format and the paths we should take are unclear but then there is that 1% of the time where everything is so black and white in front us, we just don’t always want to see it. 

I could explain my current situation further but the specifics are rather irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make.  All that matters is that I can get what I want but that means straddling the fine line between integrity and foolish pride while standing on the what is ultimately the wrong side of life.  If you have to do something wrong to get what you want it’s not worth it and honestly, it might never really be yours in the end.

Carrie Bradshaw once said that maybe it is our mistakes that make our fate but I can’t help but think that maybe our mistakes can break it as well.  If Eve hadn’t eaten the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, then maybe she and Adam would have had a different ending.  Sure the wrong choices are tempting but maybe if we make the right ones; something better will come our way.  And on the flip side of that if we make the wrong ones, maybe we will miss out on that something better that is waiting for us down the line.  For now I’m going to keep my moral compass pointing north and hope that the right road leads me to where I want to go.

"Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right." - Mario Cuomo

NEW ZEALAND POST: No Worries!

8/25

So on my first day of work, my Habitat for Humanity leaders went around to everyone and asked what skills they had prior to coming on this trip because even though construction skills were not required, it was good to know what people had experience doing.  When it got to my turn, I said I’ve used tools before but ultimately I was a construction novice.  Well on day three of my trip, me and my lack of skills had to figure out how to do things real quick.   

After two days on the painting crew, today I was told that new people would be painting and I would be doing something else.  Ok, finally!  I was going to get use tools or learn a new skill but either way, I was going to step out of my comfort zone, which is a major reason I came on this trip.  Well, before I knew it, I found myself standing on the second layer of scaffolding with a hard hat on my head, tool belt around my waist with a nail gun in my hand and I couldn’t help but think that I had definitely launched myself way beyond the confines of my comfort zone and into a realm completely out of my league. 

The nail gun was heavy and the loud sound it made when it fired was reminiscent of the


Jealous of my work outfit?!

 noises you hear during the shooting scenes in movies.  After pulling the trigger and firing the first nail through the 2x4 to attach it to the side of the house, I immediately went to hand the intimidating tool back to the professional supervising my work.  My theory was that I came, I saw, I did it and now someone who knew what they were doing can take over before I screw up someone’s home.  My supervisor just started drawing marks on the wood where I would be putting the next set of nails and walked away to get more supplies. 

Sending there alone on the metal platform, I had a slight moment of panic.  Was this guy crazy?  How could he leave me up here all alone?  This was going to be someone’s home and what happens if I mess something up and it falls down?  As the questions questioning my abilities swirled through my head, I raised the bulky, orange power tool and fired another nail through the board.  And then I fired another one.  And another one.  With every nail I fired, the doubts in my head began to fade away until I hit a little snag. 

The nails weren’t going into the board fully and a wave of panic began to rise in my stomach once again.  I tried to hand hammer them in but it wasn’t working.  Instead of continuing to try to correct my mistake, I put my tail between my legs and went looking for my supervisor.  He came to take a look at what I had done and I just felt like such a moron!  I honestly felt bad that this guy had gotten stuck with me for the day since I was such a construction idiot.  After he took out his hammer and banged the nails into wood with hardly any effort, he turned to me with a smile and said, “No worries”. 

No worries?!  Was he kidding me?  It’s actually a pretty typical thing to say in New Zealand because I’ve been hearing it everywhere.   While I worked my way around the house, nailing 2x4 after 2x4 to the frame, I made some more mistakes but time and time again, they were met with the same familiar phrase, no worries.  By the end of the day, I could safely say that I knew how to operate a nail gun and I had a new mantra.  Sure in a few weeks, I’ll go back to the US and probably revert right back into my perfectionist ways but I would like to think that I will have a little more “no worries” in my life. 

Most of the time our lives are complicated only because we make it that way.  We let mistakes or problems get emotional which can cloud our normal, rational judgment.  The truth is as simple as the old saying, mistakes happen.  As I sit here and reflect on my day, I’m not thinking about the mistakes I made or things I did wrong but rather I’m reveling in the fact that I conquered something that I didn’t think I could do.  As for the screw ups, all I have to say is “No Worries”.   

NEW ZEALAND TRIP POST: Trying Out Shoes

8/24

Well they don’t call it hard work for nothing!  It’s been two days and while I think I’ve actually had it pretty easy in regards to manual labor, my body is beginning to disagree.  I guess you could say that all the aches and pains I’m feeling are just a really good lesson in appreciation.

I say this because while it may have only been a short time so far, I have definitely found myself feeling very appreciative lately.  Back when I interviewed for this opportunity, I was told that the work would be hard so I expected it but I never had any idea how taxing even the simplest tasks on the work site would be.  Basically, when we got our first work assignments, I thought I had lucked out when they said I would be painting.  Sure I wanted to use tools and learn new skills but I thought that painting would be a good way to ease into my experiment in construction work.  Well in hindsight, I couldn’t have been more wrong.  I’ve been on the painting crew for two days now and even though I have painted before, as I rolled the ceiling, craning my neck to see what I’m doing, I found myself thinking how I would not be able to do this for a living and how much more respect I have for people that do.

The moral of this story is that we need every single person and their skill set to make this world work.  In every community, we each play our parts.  For example, maybe you are an architect and you can design the most breathtaking buildings but without the people choosing to work on construction crews, you’re really not doing anything more than doodling.  And in turn if you are on the team constructing a building, you would be lost without the blueprint instructions that are provided by the architect.  This is only one example but most of the time it takes a team to help make the final product come to fruition. 

We all have our ways of contributing to this world, no matter how big or small but ultimately it is how we all work together that allows us to accomplish things.  Sometimes it's easy to forget that.  Often, we tend to think that we are the most important part of the equation or the star of the show but without a good supporting cast, we wouldn’t be nearly as successful.  Maybe there really is something to the old saying that encourages people to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes to understand exactly what they go through.  I might have put on my own work boots this morning but I definitely took a stroll through someone else's daily routine and I have to say, I will never look at a fresh coat of paint the same.

NEW ZEALAND TRIP POST: Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Off To Work I Go

8/22

Monday comes a little faster when you skip ahead a day and typically Monday means another week full of days spent at a desk.  Every morning, I drink my coffee and type on my computer.  I take my lunch break and come back in the afternoon to more of the same.  Around 5pm, I remove myself from my chair, pack up my laptop, turn off the desk lamp and leave the building behind for yet another day.  Today, I am I million miles away from ordinary. 

We know what we can do.  We know that because its either what we have done or what we feel we are good at.  We gravitate towards jobs or hobbies that play to our strengths but if we didn’t do something completely out of the ordinary every once in a while, how would we know exactly what hidden talents we might actually possess.  By no means do I think that I am a sorority girl hiding a secret flair for all things construction oriented but I do think that I’ve never really tried anything in that field so who am I to rule it out. 

I woke up this morning knowing that for the next two weeks, I would be living in a completely different world.  I would be living a life that very few, including myself, would have expected me to live.  I think that was part of the appeal.  At the end of this trip, I will not be retooling my resume and looking for home remodeling jobs but I will walk away hopefully surprised at myself and how I rose to the challenge that was put in front of me. 

NEW ZEALAND TRIP POST: My Love/Hate Relationship With Time

8/19 & 8/20

So I have this theory that if I personally want something bad enough, somehow or someway, it will get ruined.  I’m the 8^th grader who got the prettiest dress she ever owned and then broke her foot two days before I got to wear it so that I had a matching ivory cast to go with the dress.  I put way too much pressure on New Year’s Eves or Birthdays, which only sets them up to fall short of my expectations.  I am the girl who will find the perfect white sweater and ruin it the first time she wears it to work by getting an ink mark on it.  Overall, it’s taken a lot of major disappointments surrounding big events that has brought me to this conclusion but, ultimately it has caused me to become very hesitant to want things too much.  Go figure that as I sat on the runway watching the rain fall from the plane that I began to get that overwhelming feeling once again in the pit of my stomach. 

When I arrived at Philadelphia International Airport to embark on my latest adventure, I was excited, nervous and about a million other emotions but I was very cautious to make sure I had done everything right.  I arrived 3 hours before my flight, found my gate, exchanged my cash to the correct currency, and made sure everything electronic was charged enough to get me to my first stop in LA.  I even had time to spare.  As I sat down in the waiting area at my gate, I looked out the window.  To my left, outside the windows, the sun was shining as brightly as it had been all day.  To my right, a slightly darker group of clouds were moving in my direction.  Within what was probably an hour but seemed like minutes, the dark clouds engulfed the airport and the rain began to pour from above.  My flight was delayed a half hour, then an hour.  I was still ok because I had about three hours total to play with in order to still make my connection in Los Angeles.  Finally we boarded the plane but I was down to an hour and a half of extra time.  The rain continued to fall.  The plane continued to sit.  The hands on my watch continued to tick away my prefect plans.   2 hours later, I was airborne but ultimately I was screwed.

A million thoughts swirled through my head.  How was I going to get to New Zealand?  Missing my connection meant that I wouldn’t leave until the next night which would mean that I would miss meeting my group and have to figure out how to get our hotel on my own.  Plus I would miss my first day of work.  I sat in my seat staring out the window into the dark sky wishing for a miracle.  As if I wasn’t already stressed about spending two weeks with complete strangers doing manual labor in a foreign country, now I was destined to have this trip start out in the worst possible way imaginable.

11:55pm. Five minutes after my connection to New Zealand was leaving, my flight from Philadelphia pulled into the gate at LAX Airport.  Five minutes would be the reason I would miss two days worth of my trip.  5 minutes. 

You know there are very few things that you can accomplish in 5 minutes.  For example, it took me 10 minutes to find someone at midnight in the LAX airport to tell me where I had to go to find Quantas Airlines and about the same amount of time to take the bus from my current gate to the International portion of the airport.  Normally 5 minutes is such a small practically insignificant amount of time but at this particular moment, it had the potential to inflict monumental damage on my life.  Then my obsession with five minutes was replaced with an obsession over a new amount of time, 2 seconds.  That’s exactly how long it took the man behind the counter at Quantas to tell me that my connecting flight had been delayed until 2:30am and the plane wasn’t even here yet. 

As I sit here on the plane, well on my way to my final destination, it’s beginning to all make sense.  If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that things don’t always go exactly how you expect them to or how you plan them to but life is all about learning to maneuver your way through the twists and turns that come up.  Sometimes it’s time or circumstances that seem to be against you and sometimes they surprise you and end up being on your side when you need them to be.  Stuff happens.  Life intervenes.  We can let the unexpected disasters ruin our experiences or we can continue on just doing the best we can to manage the chaos that comes our way.   I may be a little late but New Zealand here I come!

Back and Better Than Ever

Miss me???  Well don't think you got rid of me that easily!  After two weeks of being away, I'm back and just because I couldn't post, doesn't mean that I didn't write. 
So if you're curious about my latest adventure building houses in New Zealand then stay tuned because I'll be posting all about it over the next couple of weeks...