our oxfamily...

Last week in Sydney, from the 8th to the 11th, I was privileged enough to spend time with other young uni students doing **AMAZING** work for Oxfam via their Oxfam uni groups, and some fantastic people who are in the process of setting up their own Oxfam uni groups for their campus (yay!!!).

I met with students from the University of Queensland, Uni of Sydney, Uni of NSW, Monash, Uni of Melbourne, Uni of Newcastle (forgive me if I have left anyone out) and over three and a half days, we brainstormed, shared ideas, ate some heaps of awesome food and had a blast. We got the opportunity to speak to around 17 amazing Oxfam staff, from Campaigns Coordinators to Youth Program Coordinators, Advocacy writers, Marketing and Media people, etc.

We formed a National Oxfam Uni Groups Network - Oxfam Unite - which is going to be a fabulous medium for us to share ideas, troubleshoot our problems, support one another and keep in touch :) We have a website, which is going online soon ^_^ so exciting!

I had a remarkable three days, and I think that the others did too :) It's always refreshing to find a group of people that are passionate about the same things that you are, and to connect with them so easily.

Maybe if you have some spare time, you could donate it to Oxfam :) We are always looking for new people, new ideas and inspiration.

Go on... You know you want to :)

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valentine, be mine...

Hi all! Happy Valentines Day! I hope you had as wonderful a day as I had - I got to spend it in Sydney with my boy :)

I have been in an uber paper craft mood for the past two weeks, so I decided to go with it, and based my Valentines day presents for friends and family around paper hearts. I used pages from old books (which I had decimated in the process of making book safes) and cut them into heart shapes, then used red thread to sew them together in a heart garlands :) I hope you like them.

I have also been experimenting with origami for a few weeks, and I made about 30 red flying hearts described in Sok Songs origami book, Crease + Fold. They turned out rather good, once I got the hang of it, and the red-white contrast looked pretty amazing.

On Valentines Day itself, my boy surprised me with six long stem roses, which were simply beautiful. This was quite a feat, as I usually suspect things like this coming, but I didn't realize until Philip was handing me a very large rectangular box :)

We spent the afternoon walking around Sydney. First, we went into and up one of the sandstone pillars that frame the bridge, and had an amazing view from the top:

We walked across the bridge, and across to Luna Park, which unfortunately, was shut :(

After catching a ferry back across the Harbor to Circular Quay, we walked past the Opera House, and through the Sydney Botanical Gardens, spending a fair bit of time in the stunning rose gardens.

Instead of the typical Valentines romantic restaurant dinner, we decided to relax back at the hotel with red wine from Lucy's Run in the Hunter Valley, cheese from the Smelly Cheese Factory, Lindt chocolate and The IT Crowd. Simply divine :)

What did you do this Valentines Day?

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