Expat Women July 2011 Newsletter

Hi Everyone, I hope you are enjoying a fabulous July. If you missed our Expat Women newsletter last week, please take a few minutes to read, enjoy, share and tweet about it. Thanks so much and I wish you a wonderful day/evening! Andrea

Success Story
Hinda Gharbi
President - Asia Pacific, Schlumberger
Hinda Gharbi is President of Schlumberger's Asia Pacific operations. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Hinda directs the operations of Schlumberger's portfolio of service and product offerings in the Asia Pacific region. Hinda is originally from Tunisia. She joined Schlumberger in 1996 as a wireline field engineer in Nigeria after earning a Master's Degree in Signal Processing and an Engineering Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) in France...
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Business Idea
Words That Sell
Mel Henson
Once upon a time, Mel Henson lived in the hectic advertising world, employed as a full-time executive with leading London advertising agencies. But that all changed when Mel become a stay-at-home mother, retrained as a reflexologist, and moved to Luxembourg with her family. Unexpectedly, Mel later found herself working as a feature writer for a magazine in Luxembourg. This experience led her to start her copywriting business back in the UK, and to now launch her first book…
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Tips and Lessons for Entrepreneurs
Craving Success: A Startup Junkie's Path from Passion to Profits
Melody Biringer
If you are an expat entrepreneur, or someone wishing they had a business idea good enough for them to be an expat entrepreneur, Melody Biringer's new book - chronicling her lessons learned from starting 20 companies - is exactly what the motivation doctor ordered...
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Expat Confession
My Job Was A Mistake
Extract from Expat Women: Confessions
I am a thirty something professional who came here to Switzerland as a trailing spouse. I took a job here but my job is not all that I dreamed it would be. It is quite junior compared to what I used to do, and the salary also reflects this. I have a difficult time with my manager, who is inconsistent and erratic with regards to her expectations of me. My colleagues see me as "the foreigner". I am bored and lonely at work and am thinking that taking my job was a mistake...
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Expat Mothers
Emotional Resilience and the Expat Child
Julia Simens
Never underestimate the power of a five-year-old. When it comes to brainpower, a five-year-old has you beat...This may just be one of the reasons that expat children have the ability to be so resilient in their ever-changing, globally nomadic lifestyle. But just how resilient are you raising your children to be?
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Winning Story
A Year of Magic, Mystery and Chaos
Gabrielle, a Brit in Cambodia
It's no longer stinky. It's aromatic. The broken up sidewalks and chaotic traffic are not an irritation. They're an amusement. Even the searing heat is no longer intolerable. It's a method of bonding with neighbours and friends as we sweat, mop our brows and laugh at one another. Things change. A year ago today, I didn't think they would. In fact, I wasn't anticipating anything – except, hopefully, an air-conditioned coffee shop around the next corner to temporarily remove me from my misery and an iced cappuccino to help drown my melancholy...
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Submit Your Story

Not a Member Yet?

Just a reminder that our blog is separate from our main site, so if you are reading this blog post online or you are only subscribed to our blog, you will not automatically receive our Expat Women monthly newsletters.

To receive our monthly newsletters and to go in the running to win our monthly prize of a complete set of Explorer Publishing Mini-Guides, please sign up today to our main site, ExpatWomen.com. When you join, you will also receive a link to download our free e-book of Winning Stories. Thanks for your support!

Expat Women September Newsletter Highlights

Hi Everyone, My apologies for not updating the blog earlier this month when we sent out our September newsletter. It has been a busy month, especially as I was away from my desk last week for the Search Engine Strategies conference in Hong Kong (13-14 Sept) and then on to the Expat Show in Shanghai (17-19 Sept).

For those of you who missed our Expat Women September 2010 members' newsletter, here were the highlights:

(If you are a member and did not receive your newsletter, please email us here, thanks)

Success Story: Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, General Secretary, World YWCA;

Business Idea: Sentinella Network (and Word Queen), Keidi Keating;

Inspiring Women: My-Linh Kunst's book: Beyond Borders: Portraits Of American Women From Around The World;

Expat Volunteers: Celebrating Two Great Expat Volunteers featuring Anne Ponti-Riggins and Pamela Musselman;

Repatriation: Tips And Advice To Ease The Transition by Dana Frost;

Expat Confession: Teen Suicide by our Expat Women Girlfriend;

Speech Therapy Abroad: Speech Therapy For Your Children When You Are Living Abroad by Evie Oman;

Winner: The name of our Explorer Publishing mini-guide pack winner; and

Winning Story: Sandalwood Mountain Temple, by Lauren, an American in China.

If you are not a member of our main site, ExpatWomen.com, please join today to support us (and receive a link to download our free Expat Women e-book "Winning Stories"). This will also mean that next month your newsletter will be delivered directly to your inbox.

Thanks Everyone! Andrea

Expat Women December Newsletter

Hi Everyone, If you are an Expat Women member and you did not receive this week our Newsletter for December 2009, please let us know here. If you have not signed up yet, please do so.

What's in the newsletter this month? Well, in addition to our December Expat Women Home Page features, our newsletter includes:

• The name of our Explorer Publishing mini-guide pack winner;
• Our winning story by Expat Women member Serena in Mexico, Expat Paranoia Syndrome; and
• Our free E-Book of our site's winning readers' stories, from February 2007 to December 2009 inclusive.

Looking forward, we are always interested in receiving quality contributions to our newsletter. If you are interested in contributing, please send your article (or a detailed outline of your ideas) here.

Finally, if you still need to send holiday cards, please check out one of this month's newsletter advertisers, Silver Line Ink, who will print and mail them for you!

Many thanks and enjoy your day/evening! Andrea

Expat Women September Newsletter

Hi Everyone, If you are an Expat Women member and you did not receive our Newsletter for September 2009 in the last 24 hours, please let us know here. If you have not signed up yet, please do so.

What's in the newsletter this month?

Well, in addition to our September home page features, our newsletter includes:

• The name of our Explorer Publishing mini-guide pack winner;
• Our winning story Forming Cultural Foundation in the Formative Years; and
• As well as Lisa Velazquez's new article, Cultural Iceberg: A Metaphor For Transitioning Into A New Culture.

If you would like to contribute an article to our newsletters, feel free to send us your new, original, 1000-word, quality article for us to review, anytime.

Many thanks and enjoy your day/evening! Andrea

Expat Women March Home Page & Newsletter

Hi Everyone, We have just started to send out our March Newsletter, so if you are an Expat Women Member, you should receive it in the next 24 hours. If you do not receive it, please let us know here.

If you have not joined but would like to, please support us by doing so here, then check our March Newsletter online to see the edition that you have just missed. Thanks.

Success Story
Gry Tina Tinde
UNHCR
Gry Tina Tinde leads the UNHCR’s Women Leading for Livelihoods (WLL) program, which aims to develop skills and business opportunities for refugee women, funded and guided by executive and philanthropic women...

Business Idea
Ashley Hunter
HM Risk Group
Join us as we talk to Ashley Hunter and find out how an African-American woman from Texas with an undergraduate degree in music, classically-trained in violin and vocals, came to be working in insurance in Bahrain...

Multicultural Business
Mind Your Multicultural Manners:
It’s Good for Business
Lisa La Valle-Finan
Unless you have been living in a cave lately, you are probably experiencing considerable anxiety about the global economic crisis. This emotion is immediately followed by further panic when recruiters or employers are asking you to ’go global’...

Expat Confession
Pregnant in Vietnam
EW Girlfriend
We are newlyweds and decided to take the opportunity of a lifetime when my husband’s company asked if we would be keen to move abroad with his job. We have been in Vietnam for 4 months now and so far so good... However, I just found out that I am pregnant! I am petrified about giving birth here...

Inspirational Quest
An Ethiopian Odyssey
Annette Allen
Join us as we talk to Annette Allen – a half-Norwegian, half-British, adult TCK – about her 25,000 mile quest to discover former classmates, inspired by a dream of bringing clean water to Ethiopia...

Money Matters
5 Financial Steps to Take Before Moving Abroad
Maxim Global Wealth Advisors
Planning a move to another country is an exciting, but daunting undertaking which requires significant planning and preparation... and expats often fail to arrange their financial lives properly before making their move...

Winning Story
Our Third-Culture Family
Congratulations Sarah! (An American in México)
We spent four years as repatriates, and honestly the first two were especially difficult. We all felt like "aliens" walking, living, breathing among the human beings, and that often talked about feeling of being the "hidden immigrant" began to take on a new meaning...

Special Mention
A special mention also goes out to Melissa (a Brit in Thailand) for her story Blood, Sweat & Fears, which is not in our newsletter, but which we really enjoyed. Here's Melissa's bio, to spark your interest:

Since moving to Thailand in 2006 she has lived in Bangkok and Chiang Mai and fought professionally in boxing stadiums in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya and Phuket. She has a current number one UK ranking and has fought in the UK, Thailand, Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic and Switzerland. Her other interests include yoga and studying Thai language.

Win US$1000 Competition
Last but not least, if you have not yet asked your expat club/association or international school to promote us in your next newsletter, please do so soon, for their chance to Win US$1000!

Thanks Everyone, enjoy your day/evening! Andrea

Winning Story: I'm Dating A Male Supermodel

Hi Everyone, Congratulations go out this month to Robin (an American in Qatar) who has again won our winning story of the month!

Robin's win this time was for her contribution I'm Dating A Male Supermodel.

Her previous win was for her first instalment of Tales of a Single Woman in the Middle East.

To read more of our Expat Women stories - and to help us out by submitting a story of your own - please visit this page. Your contributions really do make a difference.

Many thanks in advance, Andrea.

WIN Conference 2008, there is still time...

...to register and attend. This is a fabulous conference. I went to last year's conference in Norway. A sure way to inspire your spirit, meet some wonderful women and kick-start your goals into action post-Summer.

W.I.N. Global Leadership Forum
Sitges (Barcelona Coast), Spain
Vision and Vitality: Moving into the Future
(17) 18-20 (21) September 2008

Go for it! Andrea

Looking For Expat Stories & Experiences

Hi Everyone, We are always looking for expat experiences for our Expat Women stories section.

Do you have a story that you could share?

Here are some of our previous story-of-the-month winners, to motivate you:
Inspiring People I Have Met - By Julie, a Kiwi expat in Switzerland
My Life Is A Charade - By Serena, an American expat in Mexico
Welcome to the Dark Side - By Bronwyn, an Australian in Cambodia
Integration - By Saskia, who was a Dutch expat woman in the UK

If you are a new reader to this blog, we also encourage you to support us and sign up as an ExpatWomen.com member, so you can receive your free e-book with all of our February 2007 - August 2008 Winning Stories. Thanks!

Congratulations Julie! Winning Story

Congratulations this month go to Julie, an expat New Zealander living in Switzerland, for her winning story of the month on ExpatWomen.com: Inspiring People I Have Met.

We are always looking for more of your stories (and we know you have plenty). To submit your expat story, please Click Here. To read more of the 200 or so expat stories submitted to date, Click Here.

Thank you and enjoy the first week of August. :-)