Streamline Your Life

Buy a netbook instead of a standard size notebook. Netbooks are ultra-portable, with lots of hard drive space and all the functions of their heftier cousins. I use an s10 by Lenovo.

Get a multi-purpose PDA style phone. One iPhone can replace your plain old phone, camera, mp3 player and all your books! I didn't go for the iPhone, but bought a Nokia e71, which looks beautifully business-like (think Blackberry) and has all the useful features including a camera, ebook reader etc.

Throw out your library and replace it all with ebooks. These can be downloaded, many for free, from the internet and stored on your computer or phone. As mentioned above, the best devices for reading ebooks are Nokia e-series, iPhone or Blackberry.

Never, ever, own any CDs. Are you mad? That's what mp3s are for. CDs are heavy, annoying wastes of space. Wait until you own a house to start building up a large physical music collection. Chances are anyway, by that time we will all be using a brand new format to store our music, and CDs will be totally obsolete.

Downsize your clothes frequently - at least every season, go through your wardrobe and be brutal. If you haven't worn it for the last year, it's never going to be worn. Get rid!

Buy a good sturdy washbag with lots of compartments for different things. Keep an eye on your bathroom and cosmetic products and don't allow them to amass out of control. Travel sizes might be a good idea for saving space, but they're not very economical.

Avoid carrying round large amounts of paperwork. Store important documents online. Make scans/digital photos of them and email them to your Gmail account, or use an online vault like www.humyo.com to keep them all safe. Alternatively, storing them on your laptop is ok too, just don't forget to keep backups.

Don't buy souvenirs, just take photos, write blogs and make friends.

New Gadgets and New Careers

blogging on the move again

I feel very streamlined today. I have my little netbook (made by Lenovo - it's so small, just like an actual book!) tucked into my handbag along with my new Nokia E71 smartphone (with wifi and lots of other exciting features!) this means I now have absolutely no excuse for being lazy with this new blog.

I have a job interview this afternoon, so am in a Dalian downtown Starbucks waiting for it. It's for a teaching job...but a short-term one (a month) teaching English writing skills to IELTS students in preparation for their exam. The money isn't great, but having busy mornings will help structure my days and motivate me to achieve more in my free afternoons and evenings.

This week I viewed three apartments on behalf of Dr Kay. He lives in the Shangri-la hotel but also wants to rent a second apartment in my building, for easy switching between Dalian and Kai Fa Qu. The original agent, Jenny, who helped me to rent my apartment had apparently left her job. Her two replacements were overexcited about helping a foreigner, but friendly and efficient. One of them was a logistics student at university and spoke a little English. I used the amazing Nokia to snap photos of the apartments and arrange them all into an 'active note' for emailing later to Kay. Hopefully he'll now be able to choose one and let his secretary finish off the negotiations with the landlord.

I was up at 6am today, when I managed to catch Fran on MSN. She is still having a whale of a time in New Zealand doing the working holiday thing. It sounds like fun and quite tempting. I considered it for an hour or two, but in reality, working holiday jobs consist of bar, waitressing, or - heaven forbid - fruit picking. The kind of stuff I left behind when I graduated. I don't think it would do much to improve my already fragile CV. I still need to find a good explanation for the two month mini-stint playing at project management. Although I think I can explain it honestly enough and point out how my total lack of experience in the field combined with a total lack of training/guidance didn't exactly equal stunning success. However, I know I still worked hard and learned a lot in those two months. Maybe things would have been better if I'd had a boss who was prepared to support and mentor me. But life is not about saying 'what if' and 'maybe' - it's about learning from every experience, good or bad, and using that knowledge to help you do better next time.