My first job experience in OZ, shopping can be addictive and the philosophies of writing.

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've started work, time really passes very fast when everyday's pace is a hectic one. I clearly remembered on the second day of work, I was so tired getting up at 8.30am that, I turned over and asked darling, "When can I be a tai-tai? I wanna sleep in and wake up later!" I fussed, but still didn't have any choice but to get my lazy arse outta bed in the end. First few days in the office took a bit of gettin used to since it's usually like this when you're trying to get aquinted with everyone. For the first time, I got a hang of the work culture in Australia, and it's then I realised how fortunate we are, back in Singapore. Lunch here is only 1/2 hour and a simple affair, everyone lunches in! They either have instant noodles, fast food or can food with bread. I had to bring a lunch box everyday with meals prepared the night before. I absolutely miss the lunch times with my ex colleages back in SG; The slow stroll to the variety of food courts, the gossiping and chatting and buying deserts in the 1 hour break, it's not happening here. :( But at least, my superiors and colleages were nice people as well and most importanly they appreciate my work. One of my advert designs will be out in the next issue 263 of "Unique Cars" magazine next month, I can't wait to see the actual ad when it's printed out!


Shopping can be a pretty much good therapy to perk one up. I just managed to get my first week's pay and went shopping last week in Traralgon with my chabohs and today down city with darling at The Glen. Both shopping trips were great bargains. On the left, I got the knit wear jacket, 2 pants, a trench coat, boots and cardigan all about $120+ from Rivers, KMART and BigW. On the right, Sports Girl was having a sale of up to further 50% for already reduced items and I got the skirt and 2 blouses all for just $45! The jeans and knit wear were from another shop which had a closing down sale and both items cost $20 only! Was really happy with the additions to my wardrobe and the subtractions cause I managed to sell a couple more items on ebay and hope to sell more with better marketing!

Anyway darling wasn't too happy about something he read in Threshold, one of the Uni's minor newspapers. Lets just say some people aren't professional enough with their writing and wrote some figures down which shouldn't be there. Lucky her, she wasn't revealing any figure about some public company out there, else she would have been sued, but it just makes you wonder how little common sense she has. Shea Li then jokingly said, "wah she better do well in the newsletter man, even I lose to mel already".. Yeah those were the glorious days of ISA 2004. I wished darling had more capable members in his committee, rather than some who joined only because they want to write something for "Activies Section" in their Resumes.

A few pennies for my thoughts on the last day of my holidays.

Ha, I suddenly feel the urge to blog. Why? Because I'm extremely bored since I've been "HoME ALoNe" for the past 3 days. So, instead of enjoying the last day of my "holidays" before I start work tomorrow, I decided, maybe I wanna start penning some thoughts down. Yeah, a blog shouldn't just be about writing about everyday life and what's been going on. There should be thoughts, feelings and my own perception of certain thngs. I was going through my stuff in the magazine racks just now and looking through the stack of cards I've received from friends for the past 2 birthdays. I came across one of the cards which had a paragraph ending, "I wish you all the best in your future endeavours and carry on with your quests and passion for writing." That got me thinking about, "what was my passion anyway?" I have a quick knack for things but get tired and sick of repetative tasks easily. Haha, but I do know I often imagine one thing; waking up at mid day everyday, have a nice hot bath, dress in my walk-in wardrobe of clothes and shoes and make my way like a "tai-tai" to my shop smack right in the centre of Melbourne central. Then I'll take a look at the accounts, check some of the new stock and make sure the sales girls are doing their job before I leave, clanking my stilettos, clunging my fur coat and going for a nice cuppa tea. Yeah, that would be the ultimate dream. *waha*

Okay, that's besides the point and I should stop dreaming for the mean time. Reading my friend's blogs one of the things I do sometimes. And from what I read and what I heard about a friend, I can't help but think to myself, "Why are some women so soft-hearted and naive"? I mean if someone ever hurts my heart deeply, darn I would make sure he gets the hell outta my life instead of just pretending nothing ever happened and still let him come and go in my life as he wishes. Or, I would plot revenge against him, like what the ex-gf is doing right now. Men have their own pride and dignity, but so do we women. Why wanna risk being discriminized by others when you aren't even sure if the person you are being discriminized for is going to stand by you? Love should be something that flows in both ways and should be a matter of giving and taking. Some men think women are pushovers and when he loses one, he can always cheat his way back onto the other's arms. That's where the naive women comes in. Although I don't really have the full details of what's going on, I definitely wouldn't want to see her get hurt again.

People are complex in general. When they aren't in a relationship, they want to be in one. When they are in one, they feel they need a breather or something and some time off. Don't get me wrong, I don't deny I do need a breather sometimes, but darling and I are still very much into each other and that thought about him being a lifetime partner hasn't changed. But I'm just saying for every relationship there are still bound to be problems somewhere. People say, when you marry someone, you marry his family as well. I guess I'm still not happy with the way that his parents are still kinda living in denial about him having a GF. Yess, picture "Meet the parents" movie, but his are from the girls side, not the guy. My mum and I was just chatting last night and she just happen to ask, "Why don't you all get registered next year or something?". I was like, "Ermm even if we wanted, that will never get across to his parents side." I wouldn't go into the details, but lets just say they don't believe in campus romance and always thought he might meet someone else when he starts working, because that was how they met in the first place. But they don't understand, things don't work like that anymore.. *sigh* It really hurts sometimes when my parents treat him like part of the family, always asking about him, talking to him on the phone, while his parents only devote loving letters and emails addressed to him and him only, and I barely spoke to them like 2-3 times since we got together! When will they ever understand that their little boy is no longer little?

Da Hectic Moving and Cleaning Times, Telecommunications "turn bad" and hoping for the house to be filled with warmth soon!

Thankfully after sucha long wait, I've finally made the total move to the new place yesterday. It wasn't easy cause Gee was being a pig (o.o) sleeping after working for Harry Ballis at his farm, but lucky Jess, darling's housemate was helping me put the things into the car. But I would still thank him(Gee) for keeping me company for the first night at the new place. I took almost the majority of darling's stuff as well since he'll sort of be staying with me over there anyway. It'll be so much better; no more prying eyes and gossips from people on campus. And since he always sacrifices so much for me, this time I gave him the table in my room for his laptop and study. The last few days were also spent buying cleaning stuff and toiletries for the house and cleaning it up. But as usual the landlord didn't keep his promise to finish sticking the carpet by last Tuesday, so he's gonna one day step in with his dirty shoes on my cleaned floor! But overall, the landlord really touch up the house well for us and I'm kinda like enjoying the AUSTAR as well with the movies and stuff and I can finally see Jerry Springer again! Waha..


As you can see, the "sneak preview" of my room and the general areas of the house. Yeah I know, my room always looks like an absolute stuff toy hut or something and every nook and corner is packed to the max. Oh well, I mean it's where you're living in! Of course you would want the room to look cosy and comfortable. Darling and I had a bad day last week after trying so hard to fix one of the cupboards from Ikea. He was practically screaming to get the handles in! Hmmn, I guess not everything from there is well made. But we did get the cupboard, bed-side table, small square table and a few other stuff for quite a reasonable price, plus I like their designs, so I'm not complaining. Haha.. Was too tired and lazy to take photos that day, but the meat balls and grill salmon at the Ikea cafe was awesome!

Well, I'm glad much of the troublesome matters have all been done before I start work this Monday. Was really pissed of with the telecommunications company; firstly it was their rude sales officer, then it was the numerous calls Shea Li and I had to make to clarify documents to send, lastly the phone line wasn't working well and I have to call again for a few times before an officer actually found out it was a programming problem which had to be rectified by Telstra, whom they loaned the phone line from! Oh boy and to think we were recommended by a good friend who said the company had good service! Maybe it's just our bad luck then! Thank God everything's working fine now.

I'm also glad that my chabohs and darling are all coming back this Monday. In this way, I can go to work at ease knowing Jasper won't be alone at home for too long. He's our precious little thing and although we got him microchipped and registered last Monday, we're still pretty much worried for that cute little fella. Or at least me lah, cause my puppy got stolen before when I was younger and I cried so much for God knows how many days! Anyway, am gonna write off now. Wanna go make dinner and keep Jasper company! :D *ciaos*

P.S: Thanks to darling who bought me the 3-in-1 printer/scanner/copier, to Sheali who's helping me with the phone and Internet and getting the wireless router, and to looloo for the electric kettle! woohoo! *smiles*

A Job finally, but only for awhile. Pressing things that caused an argument. Thank God he gave me longy. :)

I finally got a job as a web designer cum media publishing support in a company exporting American SUVs like Chevrolets, Hummers, Cadillac etc and 5th wheelers in Traralgon. It's a great job scope; exactly what I want, abit of website and abit of media publishing stuff, but the sad part is that it's only a contract based position of 2 months. But at least there's the option to extend the contract if there's a need to. Well, it's better than nothing since the pay per hour is pretty good and would at least provide sufficient income while looking for another job thereafter. Furthermore, Wendy from Monash Uni careers has really been a great help, even recommending me to a job placed by Recruit Solutions, a recruitment agency. But I didn't take up the other job since that wasn't in Gippsland, but in North Melbourne. So the recruitment consultant asked me to send my resume in anyway and he'll help me with finding another job after my contract ends.

Well in the meantime, apart from the World Cup fever betting, playing neopets, doing crossword puzzles and reading magazines to pass time, I was also fretting and having a huge headache about the moving house thingy, setting up of phone line and Internet connection. So last night(one of the worst days of my life), with all the misunderstandings, assumptions and tension building up, my chabohs and I almost had a shouting match. It was almost there with the voices raised especially when 2 are hot headed and the other 1 who's pretty confusing at times. But thank God again there's darling around; the level-headed, humourous one who always manages to turn bad things into good. Don't get me wrong, he's a totally impartial person and doesn't take sides, so he basically gave all 3 of us a good "scolding".

But the argument actually got me thinking about how fragile friendships are sometimes. And friendships that last are actually those where all parties are truthful and direct to each other. So the chinese translated saying goes, "Meeting each other is easy, getting along is difficult." You may think you actually know your friend very well, but when it comes to settling issues or living together, that's a totally different thing. I guess when friends wanna live together, they pretty much need to agree to the same things to a certain level of extent. Otherwise, a friendship may just be lost due to some minor differences and issues where all parties keep quiet and let the tension build. Well, we managed to get things sorted out, but still the scar is there. Certain things that were brought up really broke my heart cause I thought we knew each other really well. But apparently not, due to everyone having their own assumptions, including myself. So much as I don't want anything affecting the friendship, there is a small amount of hurt still there. But I will try my best to heal that scar, be more benevolent and hope everything will get back to normal. It'll take some time, but it'll get there...

Our Baby Jasper, God will help us find a Way, a hearty Farewell dinner and the "soon-to-come" Big move

Sorry about the long wait, usually it's pretty unlike me to leave my blog stagnant for awhile. Anyway, I went for the Victorian Driving test a couple of weeks ago and obtained my full Victorian Driver license. I figured might as well since I'll be needing it anyway. Lucky I could use darling's car for the test, so it not only saved me money, but it also made the test easier. Then out of 10 over job applications sent, I only went for 1 interview: the IT Officer job at Monash. But as expected, I didn't get it cause "so they say: they really had to make a tough decision between the comparable candidates", plus restrictions on work at the moment didn't help; I can only work with my Bridging Visa after my Tourist Visa expires.

Oh well, just like what Father Malcolm and God-ma Helen said, "Not to worry, you'll find something soon!" Father even called one of the work places I have applied for to put in a good word for me, so I should be getting another interview soon. But I'm not too stress anyway cause I believe God will find a way for me, just like he did for every bliss in my life. :) For the moment, something to look forward to: Moving into my own rented house(with my chabohs) in the next few days. Meantime, enjoy the pics of our adorable Jasper!


We also had a Steamboat dinner last Friday, sort of as a farewell to Henrie (who's going back Hong Kong), Joewiz and me. That's because after we move to our new place, we might not go to South 9 that often anymore. The dinner included everyone in South 9 plus our extended close friends as well. ;) As I've said before, everyone in South 9 is especially awesome and fun-loving, so we are definitely gonna miss them heaps. But it's alright, I guess we would still drop by every now and then. So there were heaps of food; seafood, meat, chicken, vegetables, fishballs, meatballs, crab meat and the list just goes on. There were 14 of us in total I think and we ate and ate till everyone was really bloated. Our two "South 9 chefs" Joewiz and Vivien also made sinful yet delicious desserts: Sticky date pudding, Trifle and Tiramisu. Well, who could resist such temptations, so everyone though full like anything, still greedily gun down slices and slices of the desserts. It's like once you start, you can't stop! Mmnn, I wished the desserts had lasted longer though. :( Long free hours had made Joewiz our home baker cause she was always making new desserts for everyone to try. No wonder everyone's putting on weight, including herself, kekeke... *oops* :x


Then there's also the World Cup fever where all of us sat down and had our eyes glued on the TV for the opening of the World Cup on Friday night after that huge dinner. Everyone supported different countries, but it was really funny watching the boys shouting, "GOAL!!!" at the top of their voices when the country they were supporting scored. It's small little events like these that bring a smile to your face sometimes. ;)