by Kristine | Nov 9, 2012 | Growing Up
I recall very clearly that while growing up, I wanted to be a number of things when I got older. They ranged from being a fashion designer, to a lawyer, a doctor & my favourite one so far: an air stewardess. The last one probably stemmed from the fact that Dad worked in the airline & we were lucky enough to get cheap tickets to travel places. I remember that I looked forward to going on a plane each trip, as I loved the whole experience. From the checking in at the counter, right down to the crappy plane food. Yes, I was a strange child…
And to think I like eating airplane food…
I vaguely remember that the air stewardess thing lasted till I was about 12 or 13. Around about the time I realised I probably had a bit more growing to do before I could qualify. By the time I got to around 16, I stopped growing & I am now at my full grown height of… 156cm. 2cm too short to make it to become a stewardess. Oh well, there goes the dream of serving crappy plane food to people…
Around about my teenage years, I also was fascinated with writing & becoming an author of sorts. I wrote a few articles & short stories. I also was quite fascinated with cooking & baking at that point. I quite clearly remember an assignment that I had to do for school to do with career paths & voices. We had to come up with a career goals we were interested in & come up with ideas or ways that we were to achieve that. I remember that I wrote that I wanted to become a chef & how I’d do that was to read up on books & learn from others around me. Oh how naive I was back then. My teacher wrote a note on my paper asking me to think about vocational qualifications I could obtain to follow that path. I remember thinking to myself, “oh whoops, I definitely need to do more research into this”. FYI, those were the days where I didn’t have Internet at home & I was relying on what I knew about things from people around me. It was Malaysia, need I say more?
Then I somehow grew up slightly and decided that I wanted to become a marine biologist when I was 17. I think it was cause my Dad’s cousin’s husband is a marine biologist & the whole family lived in exotic places. I might have also watched one too many dolphin or whale related movies…. Either way, it was either that or be an author. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write about but I love writing, I figured that it’ll work out one day.
Then I moved to Australia to study when I was 18. I had no idea what I was going to do at university but I had one year to think about it as I was doing a foundation year in Perth. The year went by pretty quickly and I still didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do, though I was still pretty gung ho about marine biology. My Aunty then dashed my hopes and told me people who were marine biologists would have to have had interest in it since they were young or have done some work in it before. Needless to say, I had no experience in it and my plans to become a marine biologist were shelved. That really didn’t solve the problem picking a course to study at uni the following year. The list of courses were endless, I felt like just randomly sticking my finger onto the brochures and whatever it landed on, I’d study it. Now, thankfully I didn’t do that. I was going to apply for journalism as I did have an interest in that, but in the end, I applied for 2 unis, picked biomedical science at one and food science & nutrition at the other. I got accepted to both but I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. So my Aunty put me in touch with her friend’s daughter who is an Occupational Therapist and she spoke to me about what OT was and I made the decision to reapply for OT and managed to get in through a very weird way that I’ll save you the boredom from reading.
Fast forward 4 years, I graduated and got my current job which I’ve been at for 4 years. All in all, I guess what must be said is that the career I am now isn’t one that I would have imagined I would end up with. I can say for sure that I am passionate about the disability sector and helping people in whatever capacity I have. The industry I’m in is well known for not paying well, but at the end of the day I can say that the work I did that day, made a difference in someone’s life.
by Kristine | Oct 6, 2012 | Supermarket Finds
As part of my job I visit people in all sorts of work places, which includes supermarkets. Oh boy do they stock the strangest things on their shelves sometimes! I’ve decided they deserve a category of their own on my blog, hence Supermarket Finds.
On my trip to Woolies yesterday, these are the items I found.
Probably the most amusing one so far, De Gas. Though I’m not sure if you’d take it just before getting gas or at the beginning of the day as a preventative measure. Either way, I hope it works!
For all the Halo 4 fans out there, you can now stay awake with V while playing Halo! Clever marketing scheme on their part
Now this is an interesting one. My parents actually obtained a dummy alarm box to put outside their place in Malaysia. I suppose it might be handy in Malaysia?
Well there you have it for this installment of Supermarket Finds. I’m sure this will continue to expand as I keep visiting supermarkets, no doubt I’m tickled pink each time I go there. Happy weekend!
by Kristine | Oct 4, 2012 | Personal
Looks like this blog has taken a back seat to life once again. Truth be told, things are pretty busy at work and I’ve been working weekends plus spending most spare moments with Matt when I can. It doesn’t help at all when I work about 38 – 40 hours per week of work, not taking into account the time it takes to commute to work (about 2 hours daily). Those 2 hours are not much but it’s nice to be in the car driving & talking to your boyfriend with nobody around 🙂
Last long weekend I ended up working 6 days but thankfully had a weekend due to the public holiday on Monday. Am so thankful I have a 4 day week this week with a 2 day weekend, but with moving into a new house, I’ve got heaps to sort out and unpack. Last few times I moved house, I didn’t unpack for 4 years! Yes, I have to do it a bit at a time this round to avoid that from happening again. An hour each day of cleaning house and unpacking does take its toll on free time! Now, if only I had a genie and it gave me a wish. I’d wish for there to be more than 24 hours in a day!
I guess the long and short of all this is I’m feeling a bit stilfed creatively. I’m not the most creative person on the street, but I do lash out every now and again. I haven’t written a fully comprehensive blog post or article in years and its been eating at me lately. Matt restarted his blog, which gave me the motivation to redo my blog but now have seemed to not be able to write a post the way I want it to read. It’s as if I’ve got the words all in a muddle in my head but can’t put them to pen and paper (or computer) in a way that would read well. And that frustrates me.
They say that the brain is neuroplastic and that with work and practice, things do come back and skills can be regained. I’m hoping that this will be a good opportunity for me to practive my writing skills once again and have a creative outlet once again. Here’s to a good, stable and regular creative outlet!
by Kristine | Sep 30, 2012 | Musings
Just yesterday while I was driving to work, I heard some radio DJs talking about Bali. Now there aren’t many popular breakfast radio shows in Perth, so if you’re from Perth, you can probably guess which one this is. Now the female DJ was saying that she’s going to be going to Bali soon, but this time with her dad. She’s been 17 or 18 times so far but this will be the first time she’ll be travelling there with her dad. So her dad asks, what places are there to see in Bali? Her reaction to this blew me away. She fully admitted that even though she’s been there umpteen times, she only goes to Bali for the cheap alcohol, sun & hotel pool. She even had other listeners who said the same thing! The male DJ was suggesting sight seeing places, such as the temples and the mountain ranges etc but she was quite adamant about that people go to Bali only for the booze and sun. One listener had been to Bali a whopping 42 times, but hasn’t been sight seeing!
When I heard the whole exchange on the radio, needless to say I was a big agitated. I get that yes, maybe some people have preferences on how to spend their holidays overseas but the notion of going to a foreign country to booze and not even bother to learn about the culture of the people or history is just disturbing. I’ve been to Bali once, just last year and it was quite an amazing experience. I was there for 7 days with some friends but managed to squeeze in some shopping, lounging by the pool, going out, travelling through the country side for some quad biking. Yes, we did drink and take advantage of the cheap alcohol but Bali isn’t just about that. There is definitely more to a country than their cheap booze. It’ll be like saying Australia is good for kangaroo scrotum coin pouches. The people and culture mean nothing.
Having that kind of attitude while being a radio DJ is just ridiculous to me. That’s just encouraging ignorance amongst the listeners and encouraging binge drinking in the community. And you wonder why there are so many weekend drunken parties which turn violent. It all boils down to attitudes. Do you agree?
by Kristine | Sep 16, 2012 | Musings
I think there is some unwritten rule in the blogosphere about having an obligatory first post titled “First Post” on ones blog. Who am I to break such rules?
This is pretty much to say, yes, I am back with Kristinesays.com. But this time, its a revamped version of it. It has been about 3-4 years since I’ve blogged properly and consistently, and to be very honest I miss it a lot at times. Blogging had taken a back seat since I started full time work properly nearly 4 years ago (where the heck has time gone??) and life got in the way. So what has been happening since then, you ask?
Well to sum it all up, I spent most of 2009 applying & waiting for my permanent residency, working full time, moving out from my Aunty’s place & adjusting to not studying & having to pull late nights to meet assignment deadlines! 2010 was about adjusting to working full time, studying a Cert IV through work & dealing with some quite challenging registrants. So much so, that I actually applied for other jobs outside my agency but subsequently got knocked back for them. In a way, I was rather relieved as those jobs were short term contracts which had no guarantee of permanency or extensions beyond the contracts. I also applied for an internal vacancy & got knocked back. This one devastated me quite a bit as I was looking for a bit of a change in scenery. Stayed put for a while before things settled again & I didn’t dread work.
2011 brought on quite a change for me. I put myself out there a bit more and started socialising with people a bit more. Basically decided I wasn’t going to sit at home & do nothing most nights. I ended up bonding with the girls at work, going out on social events with the girls and even travelling to Bali with my work mum! Little did I know that on 16th August 2011, I would start following my now boyfriend on Twitter. Someone happened to put a #FF out with his name, I clicked it the magic “Follow” button and the rest is history. Suffice to say, 2011 was a relatively good year. Work was pretty good in my books. I did apply & get knocked back for another 2 internal positions, which I was a bit bummed about but took it within my stride. I did plonk down money for some land & started building my house. Moved from a one bedroom unit to another rental (house this time, thanks goodness!) while waiting for my house to be built. I also applied for & obtained my Australian Citizenship (goodbye Malaysian passport!) in June 2011.
So far, 2012 has had its up and downs. Had a huge learning curve with building a house (some day I will write post about what to do & what not to do) and moving into it. 2 moves in the space of about 8ish months is tiring. Managed to move the first time from the unit to a house in about 16 car trips (yes, I am Asian. I didn’t want to spend money on a moving truck). Finally moved into my place 3 months ago & slowly kitting it out! I must say, I have accumulated a lot of junk in my 8ish years of living in Australia, I keep finding stuff that I chuck out each day! Feels cathartic though, and the cleaner in me isn’t complaining either :). Having a mortgage is tough, but worth it in the long run. Work has been tough at times but so far its been a good place to work for, so I can’t really complain. It’s nearly the end of the year so far but there are lots more adventures to be had!
Stay tuned to more adventures! 🙂
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