Hello! (and five rules for life)

I'm so excited to see new people coming to visit my blog! Some of you are coming from Julie's blog, Moments of Perfect Clarity, which was made blog of note this week! (Congratulations, Julie, you truly deserve it!) or I've found you through her blog. So thank you all for stopping by and thank you, Julie!

Among my new readers, I found Lynette, and through her blog My creative fling, I found the Five rules for life blog. I love this idea: people sharing "what they believe are the most important rules to follow for a happy, successful, and fulfilling life. "

So I was inspired to think about my five rules for life. And of course, I'm sharing them with you!

Learn, learn, learn
I’ve said it before. I love learning. Doing new things and discovering new skills really stimulates me. I love the feeling of going back to school, taking notes, thinking about what has been said... I’m interested in lots of random stuff, from languages, to knitting (some friends and I are going to start a knitting group) to literature, cinema, development and human rights issues… almost anything!

Spend time on your own
I think it's important to be comfortable with ourselves, and to not rely on others to define who we are. We're not only someone's partner, or someone's friend, or someone's mum/daughter. We have our own personality and it's important to keep some parts of your life to yourself: do a course on your own, take solitary walks and take photos of what you see, enjoy your own company.
I also think it's important to get to know yourself, what you like, and what you enjoy. When we spend all our time with others, we don't have time or space to listen to what we want and we end up believing that we want what others want. I’ve recently started a journal to record all the things I like, from my favourites movies or books to how I like to spend my weekends. I really think this will help me finding out more about myself.

Change your surroundings
Travel is such an important thing in my life. I love discovering new places, new cultures, and new languages. But I don’t have to go very far, just a change of surroundings, a day in the countryside or a visit to a museum you’ve never been to will help me to open me mind in lots of different way. It’s about leaving your comfort zone, and discovering new ways of doing things.

Don't take anything personally
I’ve unashamedly copied this from Lynette’s list because it really resonated with me. I do take things personally, but this was a real eye opener: People are simply too busy with their own problems! They’re not judging me, they are not talking about me, they are not thinking of how I’d react to their words… at least not most of the time.

Have fun!
Ah, yes! We tend to forget this one! I certainly do! Have fun, make the most of any situation, laugh at yourself! Be silly, jump up and down, sing in the middle street, laugh out loud!

What are yours?

Learning

I've said it before. I love learning new things. Normally, if I want to learn more about a particular writer, or history period, I'll start reading about it or do an evening class, all very intellectual ways of learning, as opposed to learning to DO something.
Lately, I've found myself very interested in two things I know nothing about: textiles and book binding. As always, I headed to the library and found things on these subjects (yes, I love using the library, and yes, books are always my first port of call), and then I heard about this workshop happening in London and jumped at the chance!

Prints, Patterns and Patina - a workshop with Martin Bergström

I booked myself a place in this workshop at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London and I can't wait! With everything else I'm doing at the moment, I didn't want to commit to weekly evening classes, but doing a workshop or learning day here and there would be a perfect way to learn more about these things! I'm very excited to do this first one!

And, of course, it's the perfect excuse for a day in London (may even make it a weekend) and a browse around the museum.

Learning things

I always say that if I were rich, so rich that I didn’t have to work, I’d be a perennial student. Not one of those that enjoys student life so much, they keep on failing every subject just so they can enjoy University life a bit longer. No. But there are so many things I am interested in and want to learn about that I could spend my whole life doing different Masters, or Postgraduate courses, or even a couple of other degrees. I love being in a class environment as well, getting new information, taking notes, having philosophical discussions with others. In a way, it’s easier than real life, despite the homework.

At the moment, I’d like to take some kind of postgraduate course on:

Creative Writing

Photography

Fine Arts

Translation

Multiculturality and Development

International Rights

Promoting Literacy

Women’s Studies

South American Studies

Since I am not that rich, I settled long ago for evening classes. In the last couple of years, I have taken lots of classes, some of them are:

South America Today

From words to images (about books being made into films)

English Language Teaching for beginners

Jewellery making

Styling for fashion magazines

It’s crazy, it’s stressful…but I love it!