personal

The One Where I Become Yoga-Obsessed

by Marian Schembari on December 12, 2011

It’s always been a running family joke that I’m lazy. I’m pretty sure they got this idea from the fact that a) I always “failed” gym class and b) I preferred to have my nose stuck in a book over any other activity.

While I might not be running any marathons in the near future, I feel like crap when I’m not active. This is why, instead of taking the train that’s literally just across the road from my house, I walk 45 minutes through volcano-infested Auckland. I arrive at my office moderately disheveled and wearing sneakers sexily paired with my work clothes. To say I look like a douche would be an understatement.

This is why, instead of taking some tour bus across the South Island, I opted instead to work for three weeks on a farm planting trees in Queenstown. But, as you can see from the comment my brother left on Facebook, this came as quite the surprise to my family.

This all said, I’ve never been one for group physical activities. I literally ran the other way when I spent a grand total of three weeks playing middle school soccer. And the one spinning class I took in high school made my want to light the entire room on fire, never mind come back for seconds.

So when I found myself committing to a year of unlimited yoga at a studio near my house, there was part of me worried someone else was handing over the credit card.

How it all went down…

Two months ago a friend and I walked past a street sign advertising a new hot yoga studio in the area (for those of you unfamiliar with hot yoga, it’s yoga practiced in a studio set to a temp of around 100°F). The next day I found myself sweating actual bullets while attempting to do something that involved balancing on one hand and one foot while flinging my other arm and other foot in opposite directions. All while concentrating on my breathing and attempting to “relax”.

To my shock, relax I did. There’s something pretty intense about yoga no one tells you about. Unlike running where all you have is your immense lung pain and thoughts to keep you company, and unlike adventure sports when you concentrate on the nature around you, yoga allows for absolutely no thinking whatsoever. Because the second you start stressing about work, your annoying roommates, your bank account, your crazy life… you fall. Never in my life have I been so completely and totally concentrated on what my body is doing (and so completely and totally unworried about everything else).

Two months ago my brain was all over the place. And now I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a good cry.

Surprisingly, this post isn’t to convince you to take up yoga. Though it has completely changed my life and I actually have Real Live Muscles in my legs and now I can do a shoulder stand without blinking, yoga’s one of those you-love-it-or-you-hate-it kinds of things.

But even so, sometimes shit surprises you. Maybe I grew up being known as The Lazy One. Maybe I thought anything involving group fitness was for crazy people. But – thankfully – I’ve found that trying something new every once in a while can not only alter how you spend your time, but how you view yourself.

What have you tried recently that’s taken you by surprise?

For anyone in the Auckland area, if you ever want to come as my guest to Hot Yoga Auckland, shoot me an email. Apparently I’m now a year member :)

{ 7 comments }

7 Things Travel Is Teaching Me

by Marian Schembari on September 2, 2011

I’ve traveled solo before, but never for this long and never with such a lax plan. I left Auckland in a bad state, but one month later and I am so entirely confident in myself I feel like I’ve done a complete 180. It’s shocking how being alone and seeing new things can not only change you, but help you learn things about yourself you might never have figured out otherwise.

Here are a few things travel has taught me:

I am really, really bad with directions. Even with my new fancy phone, a decent internet connection and Google Maps, I get hopelessly lost. I sort of already knew this about myself, but after spending 30 minutes walking up and down the street with my hostel ON IT and not realizing where I was, I now fully understand how much my sense of direction is completely and totally fucked.

I need social contact on a daily basis. My first few days in Melbourne were spent wandering aimlessly around a city I didn’t know and feeling sorry for myself. That changed on my first blind friend date and I’ve started realizing I need real, human contact every day. It can be with a good friend or a new acquaintance, but I just need to be social in order to be sane.

I need to go outside on a daily basis. There’s something about walking in the sunshine that brightens my mood no matter my head space. While Melbourne didn’t really wow me with it’s weather, I did find a sense of relief being in a park, even if it was dreary.

I am totally capable of eating the same thing and wearing the same outfit every day. It doesn’t mean I feel even remotely attractive. The only consolation is that I am doing so. much. walking. that my ass is going to look great when I finally do put on a pair of clean pants and start eating more than two meals a day.

I am totally capable of making friends with strangers. I am surprisingly more outgoing than I have ever given myself credit for. I was always shy as a kid and for as long as I can remember people have told me I’m a bit… well… “terrifying” is the wrong word, but I did overhear someone in college say that about me. I don’t know what to say, it’s just how my face looks. But being here and realizing I need to be social every day has made me HARDCORE about making new friends. And I’m surprisingly rocking it.

I need to go to bed before midnight. I’m actually drinking (alcohol) a bit, which for me is sort of crazypants, but even when I do go to some couchsurfing event or to a bar with a host, by 11pm I’m nodding off and incapable of waking up the next day before 9.

Coffee is a beautiful thing. Especially if that coffee is made in Melbourne. While I don’t get that neeeedddd for coffee everyone else seems to get, I have noticed a serious change in my mood once I get it. It’s not an addiction. I can stop any time. Really.

What have you learned about yourself recently?

{ 28 comments }

On the Road Again…

by Marian Schembari on August 4, 2011

On Tuesday I bought a one-way ticket to Melbourne, Australia. I leave on Monday.

For the few of you who read This New Town, it’s no secret Auckland and I haven’t really gotten along. Not because Auckland isn’t beautiful. Or the people aren’t extraordinarily friendly. And it’s not because my life here isn’t great on paper. I have my roommates from London, my Sam, my charming house, my incredible job at Young & Shand.

But at the risk of verbally hurling you a whiny version of my life, I’m simply not happy. Things that shouldn’t piss me off infuriate me. I miss my friends, my family. My support system here is almost nonexistent.

It’s funny what refuses to make you happy. What circumstances that, no matter how hard you try, still feel empty.

So I’m leaving. Not permanently I hope, but leaving nonetheless. And I’m leaving alone.

I have no idea how long I’ll be gone or what I’ll do. I’ve booked a hostel for two nights and after that…? Who knows.

As of right now I’m so scared, “shitless” doesn’t begin to cover it.

But I’m also excited. One of the happiest times in my life when I was backpacking solo through Europe.

And though this week has been one of the worst in the history of ever, booking my flight and arranging coffees with bloggers I’ve been dying to meet for ages and reading Time Out Melbourne has put me in a state of exhilarated anticipation. While also being in a perpetual state of oh-my-god-I’m-going-to-hurl. Hence, losing almost 3kg in just as many days.

So it’s probably about to get much more personal up in here. So I both apologize and tell you to bite me. Because one of the BEST things in the world about having a blog is the ability to share your experiences with people. And have those people share theirs back. And that, my friends, makes the world a much less scary place.

{ 51 comments }

A Lesson In Being Proactive

by Marian Schembari on April 11, 2011

I’m teaching myself to be more proactive. In my life, my job, with the whole settling-into-New-Zealand-thing. Before arriving, I had gotten a little lazy. Back home, social media was The Thing. Businesses, even if they weren’t hardcore into social media, understood the benefits. I rarely had to look for clients because they came to me. But over the past four months, I’ve been at a sort of a standstill. A crossroads. A cliche if there ever was one.

First off, I had no friends. Actually, that’s a lie. Some of the amazing people I lived with in London are now living in Auckland, and I’m incredibly lucky we all came over together.

HOWEVER, Sam and I live in a very isolated country in a very isolated part of town. There’s hardly any public transportation and we don’t own a car. I went from living in a city with over eight million people, to a country of only four. I’m not going to lie, it’s been rough settling in.

Luckily, email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Skype have made for an excellent connection with family and friends back home. And while my closest friends have put up with my crying every time we Skype, they’ve also given incredible insights into my new life here, my career and how I view change.

I know, a little corny for me, but there is life outside the internet and it can’t always be social media all the time. Plus, it’s my blog and I can do what I want.

Justifications aside, I’ve learned more from my friends over the past few months than I’ve learned from any blog. And, I’ve learned that even if your business (or your life) does fantastically at one point, you can NEVER stop being proactive. Not even for a second.

Operation Fear

My dear friend (and the woman behind Command C), Sara, sent me this amazing email last week and one line really struck a cord:

We have such strong tendencies to operate out of fear.

And for the past four months, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been afraid of not fitting in. I’ve been afraid of losing my audience. I’ve been terrified of being stuck across the world with no job, no friends and no money.

So I started applying for jobs I that would never have challenged me. And I’ve been trying really, really hard to make friends. But let me tell you something, you can be in a country filled with the nicest, friendliest people in the entire world, and still not feel at home.

I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I think it’s hard for anyone to do any kind of magic in their lives when moving to a new country with no foreseeable plans to come home.

But you know I wouldn’t talk about my struggles now without any kind of resolution. My point in all this being that in the past week a lot of good things have happened. Really good things. And I’m just reminded how important these two qualities are:

  1. Proactivity
  2. Patience

I joined a coworking space. I stopped applying for available jobs and started emailing companies to create a job. I have three meetings set up in one day. I contacted a local bakery, just for fun, to see if I couldn’t help out. (In case you don’t know, my ultimate dream is to own a bakery.)

Things aren’t perfect here yet. But you know what? I’m not some study abroad student exploring New Zealand only to return home in three months. I’m here for the long haul. And I’m here with my partner. I’m here with my business, wherever that takes me.

And however long it takes, I’m okay with patience. And, trust me, patience is much easier to deal with when you’re bad ass about being proactive.

What have you done lately that’s been proactive and landed you something awesome? Let’s make the comment section of this post the most inspiring on the web!

{Photo credit}

{ 35 comments }

Earthquakes, blogging and why I love New Zealand

by Marian Schembari on March 3, 2011

As one reader pointed out, I haven’t – on either blog – posted about the recent earthquake in Christchurch. A few of you have been super sweet about getting in touch, but just to put it out there, I’m nowhere near where the quake happened. I’m in Auckland, which is up up up on the North Island. Christchurch is on the South Island, and thankfully, many, many hours away.

Obviously Christchurch is still all anyone here is talking about. The news, the radio, people on the street, shopkeepers, bloggers and tweeters. The whole situation is crap. Really, really crap. A lot of people have died and I can barely watch the news because it hurts my skin to see the wreckage and people sobbing and bleeding on the streets. It takes me back to 9/11, where I couldn’t get hold of my parents and we’d all sit there dreading the guidance counselors who would solemnly take random kids out of school because someone in their family had been found.

Back in 2001, there was barely a blogosphere. I didn’t even have a computer, nevermind an online presence.

I wonder what it would have been like.

The response to Christchurch has been a really beautiful meld of people coming out of the woodwork to do their part. People have offered up their homes on Twitter. Google launched a people finder which had around 1,000 records the day of the quake and is now at over 11,000 at the time of writing.

Best of all, I’ve come across the greatest bunch of posts, all written with a certain amount of humor and lightheartedness. People cracking jokes and being “wildly inappropriate.” This puts a huge grin on my face because, sometimes, wildly inappropriate is the only way to be.

Check out these three amazing posts all post-Christchurch.

The Bloggess

First off, the always brilliant Bloggess shared an email she received from a reader, Ally. Ally is based in Christchurch and wrote the best request for help I have ever read. Just go to said post and read.

My favorite line: “We had a big earthquake and now it turns out that while the good thing about an earthquake is that you can be completely obnoxious then say, ‘Oh, sorry, that’s the earthquake talking’ there are also bad things, like it squashes your central business district and also some of your friends.”

Today is my birthday!

Of course, I then had to find Ally and turns out we’ve already chatted on Twitter! I blog stalked her and found an even better, funnier, more poignant post on the quake that she’d written more for herself than anything. It was hilarious and beautiful. Please check out her blog, follow her on Twitter and donate to the Red Cross should you have a second and some extra cash on hand.

My favorite line: “I learnt that ‘essentials’ is a very flexible term. We went into a friend’s central city, cordoned-off flat to get ‘essentials’ and came back with teacups, electronics, clothes… and a shisha pipe, a gas mask and a bag of bacon.”

But I also can’t leave out her briliant last paragraph:

On the highway to Picton between Seddon and Blenheim there is a hill which has a cluster of white stones that people use to spell out messages. It’s usually sporting HAPPY BDAY BAZZA or something equally entertaining, but when we drove through this weekend it read, KIA KAHA CHCH.

It roughly translates to ‘stay strong, Christchurch,’ and Christchurch will.

Trade Me

Then I somehow came across this AMAZING post on Trade Me (New Zealand’s version of eBay) and seller Phil Johnson has up for auction a “landscape rock” that appears to have landed in his living room post-quake.

The auction is complete with hilarious description on where you might place your new landscape rock, photographs and dozens and dozens of bidder questions that only show the incredible support of the people in this country.

My favorite line: “Suitable for garden feature, or as in our case a magnificent addition to your living area. Rocky will enhance your ‘indoor outdoor’ flow considerably, especially if you load him in through the garage roof like we did.”

In a disaster, sometimes the only way to function is to be a little inappropriate. During 9/11 it was all horror and death and barely any communication with the outside world. Thanks to Twitter and blogging and auction sites, we now have access to people who can – if even for a second – put a smile on our faces. As Ally said in her brilliant post, “Some of it is a little bit funny because even in tragedies funny things still happen, and that is how I deal with crises, and goodness knows we all need a bit of a laugh at the moment.”

God, I love that.

{ 17 comments }

← Previous Entries