The god in godmother

One of the things I'm most looking forward to when I'm back in the UK is meeting this gorgeous girl, Genevieve, aka Gen/Vivi. She was born in October and I was DELIGHTED to be asked by her mum, my good friend Kelly, to be godmother. What an honour! Now Kelly and Vivi's dad aren't particularly religious and they won't be having a christening. And good on them I say. I think that's better than all those hypocrites who don't believe in God in the slightest and have a christening in church for the party and some nice photos to keep for when Junior's older.

When I told someone the other day they asked if they'd be having a christening while I was in the UK. I explained the situation and they then proclaimed that I wasn't really a godmother at all. Pft! Like most of the people out there who are godparents believe in God and really look out for the religious and spiritual education of their godchildren? It doesn't make it any less of an honour to be picked for this special role, especially when I'm on the other side of the world.

I for one am taking it very seriously (and we'll leave my religious leanings out of it because this is not really about that). I will be watching this little one grow up with genuine interest (as well as sending her excessive amounts of cute new clothes and toys by airmail) and fondness. Her mum bandied around the words "good role model" and I hope I can live up to that. I'll be that exotic Auntie Jen in Australia who sends the best presents for her birthday. But I also hope I can teach her a thing or two about what it means to be a positive and independent kind of gal in this day and age.

Will you look how cute she is?!

Feeling kinda homesick

My little (25 year-old) sister will be meeting me at London Heathrow on Friday lunchtime. We haven't seen each other for 13 long months. I'm convinced it's going to be the kind of Love Actually airport moment I've always hankered after, unlike the tears when I left. Can't wait.
It's funny, I've been here in Oz over a year and I've not had many moments of real homesickness. But now, knowing I'll be back in just a few days, I'm remembering all the people I'm missing and how much I miss them. And I'm already dreading saying goodbye to them again at the end of my three-week trip.
I love my life here, much more than my old UK life, but living on the other side of the world is tough. I think it's easy to forget just how far away you are and then, faced with a 24-hour plane journey (ugh), it brings it all back into reality. If I'd stuck to my original plan and not fallen in love with this country, I'd be home by now and there'd be no going back to visit, then leaving again. It's going to be a real test and I think it will make me realise whether I love it here enough to leave all those people behind again. Because if I didn't, I'd sure as hell miss all my friends here, big time.
There are a lot of things to consider when you move overseas. And if you had to make the final decision whether it would be forever before you made the move, few would do it. But you just have to take a chance sometimes and you never can predict what's going to happen.
On the plus side, only three more sleeps until I leave! Yippee!!!

Whingeing is good for business

Seems those Aussies quite like whingeing poms after all. The Whingeing Pom is the name of my 'work' blog on dynamicbusiness.com, and more often than not I use it to have a rant. It's so therapeutic! Psychological benefits aside, one particular blog got 1,800 hits in ONE DAY this week which is great news for our website. The page about me also ranks in the top ten pages (the homepage being the most popular, obviously) on the entire site this week. Who would have thought all those people would be interested in reading my rantings? Such is the power of the world wide web.

I must admit I have been heavily self-promoting the blog via social networking tool twitter (follow jenbishopsydney) and messing around on the internet chatting to people has now become a justifiable part of my job. That Facebook ban's still on at work though. Sulk.