*sigh*- Alright, I'll move to Nomadlife...

Greetings all,
Some of you may know me, many of you do not. My name is Ralph Panebianco and I, like so many others here, am an AIESECer. Originally from Sydney, Australia, I am currently on a three month CEED in Beijing, Mainland China. I keep another weblog at www.xanga.com/jpanchia but my recent flirting with nomadlife.org has prompted me to move my discourse here.

At this point, I must remind everyone that the migration to nomadlife.org was not an easy decision. Having researched the blog phenomenon rather thoroughly, I quickly discerned that nomadlife.org was far from the most 'function-rich' means of chronicling my musings. Lately however, I began to feel two things. The first was loneliness. Xanga is good, Xanga is great in fact, but only myself, Flick and P-Boy use and the result is the feeling that there are perhaps bigger, more vibrant and responsive communities in existence that i might be able to, in some small way, contribute to. It was this loneliness that prompted my second feeling, or perhaps i should say realization;

In my time in AIESEC, particularly whilst I am abroad, I am experiencing something life changing. Everyday that goes by, I am learning new things, meeting new people, facing new challenges and discovering things about myself that I never knew. It's perhaps in these moments of self-realization that one feels most alone- that what you learnt about you at that moment was so significant, so profound, that no one else could have experienced it, and no one could ever understand it. This then is the magic of nomadlife- a collection of people who are all, to some degree or another, on a journey of self improvement and self discovery. People who are all having these moments and are sharing them with others. That's what has brought me to nomadlife. I look forward seeing where it goes.

Ralph