Thursday, December 25, 2008

Off to the big city

3am
gotta be at the airport in 2 hours.
3 phone calls since 11.30pm when I went to sleep. Two from the publicist. So tired.

Last minute packing.

Happy New Year everyone.

....No phone or internet in Brisbane for me.
Yusss.

Aaaa so SO excited!

Much, much love for the time of year!

Trust....Your....Future!!

<3

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

This time of year totally gets me going. Running around singing carols about Rudolph or Feliz Navidad. Nope nothing's changed since I was a kid.

Last night was work work work, but Ian who just got back from China picked me up at midnight to go 'chill'. Ian's like my brother. We go waaay back to our college days - we did mentor training together with Reuben. Like family.
Met up with some other lovelies I haven't seen in aaages. So good to catch up with them - with them it's like seeing Sam and the boys - you just feel like one of the boys. We all call each other bro. Hard.
Man Wellington was quiet for Christmas.

So we headed to Hataitai.
May I please say I played PlayStation 2 seriously for the very first time - we played some pinball game - I was Ice Man and Ian was that guy on fire from Fantastic 4. Ian and I whipped the bad guy's butts!

Great stuff - the only guy I didn't have a tie to from college or long time friend tried to get everyone to go to town. Haha he thought I could get them off the couch. Nooope.
"Eva man, Eva get them to go to town. Let's go"
"Naaah bro. Dude, I know them. They're the boys. They would go if their girlfriends asked. They won't listen to me!"

Crack up.

Yusss! Workshop time. Finalizing absolutely everything today. So so can't wait. a little more than 12 hours and we're off to Brisbane!!

Got a ile of clothes on my bed behind me, so the suitcases are waiting for me when I finish this.

Yumm we got cupcakes!
I don't even wanna eat them. BUZZ Restaurant make the prettiest little cupcakes. Mmmm.

Merry Christmass!!

<333

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Attention to detail and big picture thinking

As of half an hour ago, 299 people have officially registered on my website in one week!!

Just sent out my little 'Merry Christmas, thank you for making a difference' e-mail to them :)
Man I love people.
Whoa whoa whoa!
So stoked!!

Stayed up all night putting the finishing touches on the workshops. Almost a work of art. Almost.

Sorted out all my financial loans and allowances and all that for Uni. The internet's so cool. It could be 2am on Christmas Eve, and you can still register for serious things!

4 interviews in Brisbane now. WOW!

And Sam, if you're reading this, I've got your big load of Tearaway magazines, including Jono's issue....it's sitting in my room...yup....just as I write!

Big countdown: I'll be flying out to Brisbane in 48 hours!
So rad - 350 acres of pure cultural goodness with circus acts and bands and speakers and workshops and dancers and fire dancing and singing and and and...!!!!!
Mum was freaking today in case we get lost - no phones, no internet, no nothing. Just the outdoors and lovely people. Yussss. I'm looking forward to my tech detox.

Ohh...so so weird. I never gave these online networking sites much thought, apart from keeping in touch with friends, but ya just learn new stuff every single day don't ya. I swear everyone's like family online. I've met 4 complete strangers who are going to be at the festival volunteering and one of them's singing there...

Amazing or what?!

Power of the internet!

And now I leave with some smartage quote said by Ron Dennis (Google him - amazing man)
as told to me by another amazing man - ze lovely Sam:

"The human spirit is unsuppressable. There's no such thing as 'ordinary people' because people are extraordinary.
So there is simply no limit to what we can achieve..........


.....You can combine attention to detail with big-picture thinking.

YOU CAN MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE, POSSIBLE."



My friend decided to send this to me...he swears he'll leak it to someone one day to show me in my moment of egotisticalness....
In my defence, he asked to see his name in my book.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Wisdom Words

So after my little burst of interesting inspiration last night, I must say the real Eva is back.

And here's some things I must say to people - whether you want to be an author, or achieve goals, or whatever...

If you want to be in this business, don't. Because you're going to have to go through a whooooole lotta pain to keep up.
If you can't handle the jandle, get out. If you don't enjoy it, get out now. If you can't dedicate and apply yourself, no use doing things half-heartedly, cuz you still won't get anywhere.

When people tell you you're not good enough, or make excuses as to why you can't make it, go call up the nearest TV station, get on TV and prove them wrong.

You are your best PR agent, best friend, and best support. If you don't care about yourself, no one else is going to care about you as much as you are.

Keep your character, unless you want to change it for yourself. That character is what got you to where you are now.

Be grateful.

If you are not satified with the past, learn from it to make a better present.
If you're not satisfied with the present, plan to make a better future.

No matter what they taught you at school, never cycle on the fact that you should come first. Yes, you should respect yourself at all times, but always, always always care about other people, help them, and do things for them - just because.

Never, ever, ever give up.

You think you've seen it all...

Do you know what the funniest thing about meeting up with an ex is?

That you've already been there, done that, and you already know what failed. You both know who cheated who out of love, or money, or trust, or whatever. It's kind of like playing cards out in the open. If you had a good relationship, you know each other (well, the people you once were) inside out. But one thing that's different is that one of you has a grudge against the other. Maybe you both have it against each other even. And you think even if you wanted to get back together, you can't. It's a different time. And it's useless, because obviously you've both proved yourselves to each other. Next time a conflict comes up, one of you will find link to the past. It 's just in human mentality.

OK, so you're walking to a cafe. We decided to meet at the cafe that wasn't 'ours'. It's funny. You break up, and you stop enjoying the cafes, and places you once went to with that person. You just don't want to remember how he spilled coffee on you and then turned the day into a shopping session, so we could actually go to the long awaited concert - nice and un-coffeed. Oh, and he would have also probably told you how marshmallows on your black skirt accentuate it. Aaah.

So you're walking, walking, walking.
We've been to this cafe before.
It's no big deal. Just the last time you were here was that one day when 'our' cafe was closed down for renovation.
OK, don't worry, don't worry, it's 10.57am. You're sweet - you're supposed to be meeting at 11am. A whole three minutes early girl! No biggie. Step through the door. Look for a spare table....oh....uh oh....they're all taken....wait who's that guy looking....

Oooosh! Damn. Should have worn jeans...slowly, but almost excitedly you walk up to him.

"You're late. You always make me wait. Some things never change, do they?" he says with his half-serious, half...OK, I have to say it...cute-ish smile.

Oh God. I wasn't listening...sorry....you said that fine smile of yours never changed?



"Sorry...." you reply.
You don't want to go into the technicalities of how your watch says it's not even 11.
"How are you?"


THE BANNER!

I ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT CONTAIN MY EXCITEMENT!!

My real life size banner for Brisbane arrived this afternoon!!!!!!!!

Oh my.....
Now I'll have to look presentable to match that girl printed on it....




Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Joined more parenting networks.

3 Magazines want definite interviews on the 3rd in Brisbane.

Major drama in Portugal. (don't even ask me how this happens. But trust me - relationship problems are universal)

Followed up all bookstores, media places, etc. (Today was THE crucial day - tomorrow most of them will be taking the rest of the week off)

One of the bigger stores called me to say Merry Christmas.
They love it.

Worked on speech for Brisbane. (can't help changing it every time I read it. In Russia we sometimes say: better is the enemy of already-done-well.)

Got invited to Bangladesh.

Most important thing: GOT ACCEPTED INTO UNI!!
Except now I want to do Accounting and Law alongside Psychology, all through the Distance Learning Program. I won't be in NZ next year for longer than 1.5-2 months at a time.

As the boys would say: Oooooooosh

Peace out brothers and sisters

Yo

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Toto + Brother = Geniuses

Went to bed at 6am.
Woke up at 11.30.
Couldn't believe it! Wanted to get up at 8.
9 at the latest.

Millions and millions of things to do...
Can't concentrate...this song 'So Far Away' is playing on my laptop. I'm not sure if the melody is soothing me, or making me anxious. My ex gave it to me on a CD he made.


Change songs.


Just something by Toto Cutugno.
Genius that man was.

So OK, work for todayyy....
Keep looking around on the parenting places. Make profiles, introduce myself, see if I can help. Hard because people think I'm this teenager trying to be sneaky, but I'm genuinely there if they need help....hmm....it's not very popular to listen to teenagers sometimes is it.

Look at the new Fund4Writers e-mail. If you're reading this, and you love to write, go to www.fundsforwriters.com and sign up to the free newsletter. You can buy stuff from there that guarantees you'll be able to quit your job and start being a full time journalist, but sign up to the newsletter first. Every week it sends you an e-mail with links to magazines and websites who need writers, so all you need to do is send your work to them, and see if they want it in their issue. When they say yes, well, that's you sorted with a couple of hundred in your pocket.

Also I gotta write some more e-mails for my newsletter. If you go to www.youshutup.co.nz I now have my newsletter. Exciting! I know. This absolutely means I must have new content every week for the people that have signed up.

Gotta keep practicing my workshops and speeches for Brisbane aswell. The Woodford Folk Festival is nearing. Eeek! We're leaving on Friday!! Still need to confirm when I'm meeting with the Black Seeds. I am SO excited. I started packing last night. I love packing in advance. Gets your hype going even more.

Hmmm and gotta invoice three bookstores today too.

After that I'm sure I'll find some other thing to do like iron shirts. Or maybe I should play some chess with my brother....
He'll probably beat me. I swear he's some sort of prodigy. Love you brotherr.

Ciao Ciao Cacao

Eva-Maria

Friday, December 19, 2008

E-mails at 1.10am on a Saturday Morning

OK, so 1.10am. On a Saturday Morning. Atleast in the country I am in right now. I'm not even out in town. Nooope. I'm at home.

Checking and replying to e-mails. Between 7.30pm and midnight, you won't believe how many people send e-mails!
Crazy thing is I end up checking about 5 different e-mail accounts every spare minute I have in a day, and although you'd think you would get a couple of e-mails a day, even with so many accounts, but nooooo.
E-mails about interviews, meetings, scheduled dates, events, opportunities, coaching, articles, sales....

Such an exciting night though. One of my best friends - Reuben got back from India last night (the guy in the middle of the photo) - he got a scholarship to go to a college there. So our little group - all us Athena Montessori Kids had dinner (the picture blow was taken a couple of years ago when we got together for a home ec exam assessment for our wonderful friend Meggzzzz). We have the most ridiculous conversations, usually about of course, our past at school. It's amazing we haven't run out of memories and news. I bet we'll still be chatting away like this when we're like....50! So cute - everyone's got jobs, and going away flatting, and enrolling at Uni. It's like we're all 13 again, but with more grown up agendas....


We love it.

Night night darlings. Think I'll be off to bed early tonight.
Workshop and more speech practicing tomorrow for the Brisbane Trip.

Au Revoir,

Eva-Maria

xoxx

Thursday, December 18, 2008

First Blog - Bears, University, and the Meaning of Life

OK, so being the person I am, and loving to write, people kept telling me to start up my own blog. I actually don't know why it's taken me this long to do it.....

So here it goes - my first ever blog. I'll never get this same feeling of the rush of posting the very first blog up for the very first time...

OK. I'm calm.

Guess we'll start with the basics...you know, to get into it...

I'm Eva Maria.
I'm 18.

I wish I could tell you I'm a secret spy squirrel who is secretly an undercover alien, plotting to bring peace and harmony to this Earth.
My imagination takes over half the time no matter whether I'm talking or writing, so don't be discouraged when my mind wanders...it'll get to the point eventually.

Currently I'm living in Wellington, New Zealand. It's a nice little capital away from anywhere big and busy, so it does me good.

I was born in Siberia, which is a huge part of Russia. To put myths at rest, bears do not live in people's homes there, let alone walk around on the streets. It gets cold in winter, yes, however the world doesn't hear about how our summers reach over 40 degrees. It's a place of extremes I guess. Which I just realized reflects my character.
Weirdd.

Also, I feel like I must say that Vodka isn't cheaper than water, or milk for that matter over there. And there's no such thing as a binge drinking culture. You get the odd alcoholic on the streets, stumbling home, but hey, the odd ball exists in every country.

In future, my preferred country of residence is France.
Paris to be exact, but I'm not putting my heart on anything yet.

You must be thinking "gosh silly little daydreamer wants to go to the city of love".
At this point in life, I'm probably one of those 'Down With Love' Renee Zellweger type crazies. Relationships is not my fortay.
Anyway, so Paris. Paris has intrigued me even before I knew what romance was. The culture I saw through French cinema, and more importantly literature, the character of the nation - it excited and interested me.
Also the Sorbonne University is there.
I don't want to go there just because it's like the Oxford of the French speaking world.
I want to go there because the attitudes, learning style, propaganda about education and knowledge, and the revolutionary mindset is what attracts me to it.

At this very current moment, I am an author.
Feels wank writing it as an occupation on those little forms for visas and questionnaires, but it's true now.
I work in other places to get by, but writing is what I'd do even if I wasn't getting paid for it. Actually helping people in any way possible is probably on the same level of things I'd do if I wasn't getting paid for it.

My mission for 2009 is to change one million adult-teenager relationships. Imagine happier people around.
Bageebas!
I'd LOVE that!
What would be really cool is if the guy that sells me salami could just smile at me, just once, instead of mumbling how teenagers like me are probably no different to the menace of a daughter he's 'stuck with'.

So yeeeah I'm getting pumped and ready for the big 2009, and I guess I'll be writing about my exciting adventures in this blog, so keep an eye out should be an exciting year!

Much love,

Eva-Maria

xxox