Interview with Lola Kapris

she lives here

This is an interview with my friend Lola, who has been living and working in Hong Kong for the last few months. 

I think this is a great story, because she is from Serbia and really went for what she wanted and got herself somewhere different and changed her life. Lots of my friends in Serbia feel kind of trapped here, without much hope for the future. I understand that it is easier for me to travel and fulfil my dreams with my British passport and freedom to go where I want to go, but I do think its possible for anyone to make and break if its what they really want to do. I have known Lola for around 5 years and I have seen her go through so many things. I know that to get to where she is today she struggled through so many things and tried many, many times before she was successful. I saw her at many times really discouraged from her efforts, she wrote so many different interviews and sent her CV to lots of places before she actually got accepted for Hong Kong. She also had a lot of options fall through and things go wrong at the last minute, including her visa for Hong Kong, which took an extra 2 months, where she was waiting and did not know if she would even get it.

I have seen her go through ups and downs and I really respect her and think that her story is especially inspirational. Enjoy the interview everyone

1. Explain to us what you are doing in Hong Kong, and how your life is like there?

My official title is ‘International tutor’ and my job includes teaching English, organizing interactive workshops and ESL activities as well as providing pastoral care to the students in my student hostel. My life here is pretty nice. Hong Kong is an amazing, vibrant place to live in because it has a huge variety of food, especially Asian food from all over Asia, a lot of expats just like me, a transportation system that’s one of the best in the world, as well as a very low crime rate. So believe it or not, even if you lose your wallet or phone, there’s a higher chance it will be returned to you safely rather than it disappearing (which did happen to my friend, twice… so yeah). All I do here is work until 4 pm mostly (my working hours are flexible) and then I go and eat some nice food and meet friends in the evening to either eat again (warning: it’s easy to get fat here) or go to happy hours that are easy to find. On special days, we go and visit temples or go hiking and so on, so it’s pretty awesome. Lot’s to do.

2. What was the journey you went through to get to where you are now?

Umm, well, back in Serbia I had three jobs (including working in the café which I loved and miss so much) but none of them were lucrative enough to give me a nice life, so I had to look for something better, because I was really low on money. I had to go through a lot of different job interviews and turn downs before I got this one, so it was really stressful, but definitely worth waiting for.

3. For a young person coming from Serbia what are the obstacles you faced to find a job in Hong Kong?

Well, it’s always great when people ask you where you’re from and you say Serbia and they’re like ‘Oh..’ in a tone filled with disappointment, but for me personally, it was hard to get an English teaching job because they wanted native speakers and obviously I’m not one, so I had to prove that I was good enough to work with native speakers. It was a challenge for sure, but actually we’ve all established that it’s better to have both native speakers and people like me, because students can relate more to me (because English is my second language too) while they can learn more about the culture and study abroad programs from them, so it’s basically a win-win situation.

4. What advice would you give for other young people who want to do something similar?

Do it. We’re young now and now is the best time to take risks and discover what it is that you want to do in life. If you decide to leave your comfort zone and explore, you’ll learn so much more about yourself and how to be alone, make new friends, overcome obstacles at work, get in touch with your roots even more and grow in so many different ways. The biggest lesson I learnt from this experience is that the world is so small and that nothing is impossible if you really put your mind to it. There are no excuses. All you need to do is work, work, work. :D

5. What motivated you to push through until you got to where you needed to go?

Mostly the fact that I had no more money and that I would probably get sick if I continued in that pace. There were only two options for me and they were either go and get a better life or stay and be miserable forever. So I chose to go and even though I miss my boyfriend, family and friends (who gave me so much support through all this) and other things about my country, there are still many more opportunities here for me to pursue and become who I want to be eventually. I chose to be happier, simple as that.

6. What do you see happening in your future and where do you want to go from here?

So many things need to happen in my future. I want to become a better teacher, get even more certificates and my master degree, try to work in other countries too and see how they do things. I want to learn a lot about teaching, to see how education is changing and be a part of that change. 

where she really belongs... at CE with me :)

Her teaching crew in Hong Kong

 

Pretending to be….life lessons on making bikes, ego, and who we pretend to be

Today I completed the building of a bike that I had been working on for around 4 months (yeah I know how slow I am). I started trying to learn more about bikes the last couple of years. I guess I really wanted to be good at it, because I thought it was cool… also I do love cycling, but I thought the idea of a girl bike mechanic was very cool. The problem with trying to do something only because you think its cool is that its not actually following your real passion and skills, of course I think we grow in everything we try to learn. However if you are not truly passionate and are only doing it for the name… it really cannot go further then a certain level. You cannot fake passion, I have recently seen that my desire to make  bikes, stems a lot from ego, self-absorption and a desire to appear something good before other people. How did I come to this conclusion? I saw that in making one bike, 4 different people had to assist me greatly, I couldn't actually bring myself to do it all myself, then I post my bike on facebook… its like… yes I did it… well yes, but with a LOT of help.  I know I always want to be good at things when I see that others are doing them well, I feel like its so cool… why can’t I learn it too. I think my hunger for learning is a great thing, but sometimes the motives behind it are kind of ego-related.

I have tried to learn and be so many things in my life, sad to say, most of the time it was not for me, to make me happy, or to be a good person. It was a lot of ego, because I wanted to appear a certain way to others, I always had a really strong fear of people not liking me. When I studied at college I was the most hated girl in the whole college, no one liked me and I had no friends at all. I think from this and from some childhood roots, I gained a really strong emotional attachment to the opinions and thoughts of others. Someone elses compliments or criticism could ruin me or build me to an incredible level.

 When we break down ourselves and think about it.. how crazy can we be to base our feelings on someone.. when they themselves are so unstable, their thoughts change as do their actions, how can we allow them to sway us or to damage or to uplift us?

I have recently come to see that to truly follow our passions, we must be true to ourselves, be true to what we want, what we really think about something. We need to get away from doing things to be cool, but to do things that are right… from the inside out. I won’t be stopping learning about bikes, because I am interested, but I have to admit, I am far far far away from ever being able to call myself a bike mechanic or to say that I know something about bike repair and making bikes. My knowledge is rudimentary and so are my skills.. and that is ok, because I am in a position where I am learning and growing everyday, I am learning when all those other people help me put together my bike, I am watching and yes I am doing what I can. However I am no expert… I may never be, today I learn… tomorrow…. who knows. 

Its really ok to not be good at something, to be a beginner, to be dumb sometimes, to not get things, but I think we have to admit it more. I often tell people a lot of stories about who I am… ‘Oh I own a business…’… ‘Oh I repair bikes’… ‘Oh I used to be a dancer’… yeah there are truth in all the things I say about myself… but I don’t feel ready or qualified to say that I am really able to do those things perfectly yet. I learnt that if you tell people an uplifted story of yourself, if you brag and exaggerate about who you actually are… you cannot learn properly. Because imagine this…. Let’s put it on simple terms… you go to school and tell the teachers you are sooo smart, you are a genius (but really you are normal intelligence), you tell them how you did this and that… they think… wow… and put you in the hardest class… its too hard.. your learning jump was too high… you will sit there and not understand a word of what is being said. We should be on the level we are supposed to be, then when people give you advice, or when you get stuck in a situation where you have to explain yourself or really give some proof of your knowledge, you won’t be shitting your pants, because you were bullshitting everyone the whole time and actually you are bullshit. None of us are bullshit, we are all something great, but what I really am is who I want to be.

I know that I am not an expert in anything, I can accept it. I know I am no business genius, not an amazing entrepreneur, not a mathematical mind, I am not building an empire. I am not putting myself down when I say these things, because I do know who I really am. I understand that I am really working on myself, from the inside to the outside, I know that I am someone who can contribute and who can make peoples lives better, I know that I am able to do many, many things… because I am willing to try, I am brave.. I am all those things and I can back them up, because it is really me… and I am proving it every single day.  I know that with all the things I can do, all the things I am learning, all the things I really and truly am, at the core of me I have enough. 

Think about this… if they stripped you down naked, took away all your frills, props and accessories. If you had to be real… with nothing on you at all, except all that is in you. What would you be? And who would you be? Because without all this hipster, biking, tattoo, business, designing, dancing, artistic pile of shit stuff that I own and that I have on me… I know that what I am without it all is what really counts… I am a small person, I have not always been good, I have not always been right, I am a very small person, just like everyone else, but I am trying, I am here today because I am trying to move forward and to make this life the best it can be. I hope that I never forget it. 

The subtle art of Rejection

When you feel that you cannot be good at anything in life, and all your talents and skills are meaningless in today’s society… do not give up… there is one thing you can become skilled in and learn to handle that will help you in you future. REJECTION is a scary word for all of us, when we get rejected in any area of our lives our ego is hurt and its hard for us to feel confident in ourselves. However I have been making many a mental switch these days, figuring out why certain things trigger negativity and depression in our lives. I have realized that although it is hard to be rejected, I can learn to handle it in the right way, so that every rejection inspires me to achieve more, be better and understand others.

THE REJECTION CHALLENGE

When I was in Graz I read an interesting article about a guy who experienced a heavy love rejection, it had been so hard for him that he had become a total introvert and didn't go out anymore or talk to people because of his fear. He realized how crippling it had become to him and decided to take action to get himself more used to being rejected. In order to do this he set about getting one rejection every day, he would ask people absurd things and challenge himself to be in rejectable situations so that he could toughen himself to those situations. If you think about it, one person telling you no to something has no indication of the real evaluation of your life or skills, most people’s perspective of you or of what you are doing when they tell you ‘no’ is more of a direct reflection of them then of you. The more times we put ourselves out there with the possibility of being rejected in any thing, there are also more chances of being accepted. If you try more, you will probably lose more, but also probably win more.

I set about making myself a similar challenge to this guy, every day I tried to do one thing that was scary or counter intuitive. What was funny was that I didn’t end up getting rejected as much as I thought, I actually got more accepted. For instance I went to a pub with my friend for a drink, I asked for the manager and requested a job, he asked me to come back for an interview… I was really surprised, but somehow it worked and gave me a great feeling of confidence.  I didn't keep the challenge up for the whole month of February, but the times when I did try it made me realize that sometimes we are not trying anything because of fear of not getting a positive answer.

There is a quote that I guess we all know, it says ‘fortune favors the brave’. The more accepting we are to say YES to more things and not to fear the answers and responses from others when we suggest something, the more chances we have for something to go right. I want to create more opportunity for opportunities in my life, by asking more questions, being more bold, and not being afraid of the response.