no comfort zone challenge: InterNations

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No Comfort Zone Challenge

Tuesday, July 3:  This week I stepped out of my comfort zone and joined a group called InterNations. This group, InterNations: Connecting Global Minds, is an online community of expats in over 300 communities across the globe.  I joined the Muscat community, and now I can attend social and networking events.

Tonight Barb and I went to a cocktail hour at Trader Vic’s at the Intercontinental in Muscat.  There were over 200 people attending, and it was a way to get to know some new people.

I have been a member of such groups in the Washington, D.C. area, such as The International Club in DC.  I really am not good at mingling and making small talk in these kinds of situations.  However, I challenged myself to step out of my comfort zone and attend, and to try to strike up conversations with new people.  I met a fair number of expats who work in Oman, doing anything from teaching to practicing law for oil and gas companies.  It was good to do something out of my normal routine.

Since I’ve now joined this group, I can now attend future events.  None are planned before I leave on my holiday August 2, but hopefully I can attend more events like this after I return to Oman on September 15.

If you’d like to participate in Inside Out Cafe’s No Comfort Zone Challenge, please check it out at No Comfort Zone – 2012 Weekly Challenge.

Marge Katherine writes:  Whether you decide to take a different route home, listen to country music instead of rock and roll,  read a book by a new author, drink a new type of wine or work on a crossword puzzle, visit a new website, increases your daily steps, try a different workout routine, listen to new singer, try a new food, attend a poetry reading or WHATEVER …. do it and share it on your blog!

Some things you choose to do may be dramatic; most things will be changing the way you usually do things like brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand or listening to a different radio station as you drive.

share your world: cee’s life questions (week #30)

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share your world

Tuesday, July 3:  Here are Cee’s Life Questions for this week.

You are invited to a party that will be attended by many fascinating people you never met.  Would you attend this party if you were to go by yourself?

I have gone before to parties where I didn’t know anyone, and sometimes it’s worked out, but mostly I am shy and not good in crowds, so I feel too awkward being alone.  Here in Oman, I’m sure there are lots of open parties in Muscat, but I never go because I don’t want to go alone.  Tonight I’m actually attending a cocktail hour with a group called InterNations at the Intercontinental in Muscat, but that’s only because my friend Barb invited me.  I wouldn’t venture out to this if I had to go alone.

If you were the original designer of one existing corporate logo, which one would you select?

One of my favorite places to spend an afternoon is the clothing store anthropologie.  Part of what I love about anthropologie is the store’s overall design, with its whimsical window displays, funky clothes, 50s-era housewares, and the eclectic mix of music that drifts over you as you shop.  Sometimes I go in and wander around for an hour just perusing and relaxing and listening to the music.  I am transported by the store’s ambiance to an exotic imaginary world (usually Paris or some other romantic European city) and then I walk out with too many purchases in hand.  The store has a wonderful marketing strategy ~ to transport people to their dream lives!  Here is their logo, which also tells a lot about the store.

From anthropologie’s Facebook page: Anthropologie offers a one-of-a-kind and compelling shopping experience that makes women feel beautiful, hopeful and connected.  We invite you into our world with the hope you take a deep breath and explore until your heart’s content.  Although you enjoy the clever details and fine craftsmanship of our products, you come to us for more than that. You come to escape and to connect, to spend time and to make time.  Complex as you are, you remain our inspiration and because of this, we endeavor to bring you an unimagined experience.

If you could be a student of any university in the world right now, where would you enroll?  Irregardless of which university, assume they teach what you want to study.

I would want to go to Harvard University just because it’s in Cambridge, Massachusetts which is one of the prettiest places in the USA.  I love the northeast of America.

If you had to spend one weekend alone in a single public building or institution, which building would you choose?

I’d spend the day in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.  This museum is known for its collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces (the largest in the world) by such painters such as Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh.  I’m a big fan of all these painters and would love to spend a weekend in their company.