Bleeding in the dry

Yesterday in the office is boring as many other interns would possibly encounter. Apparently the work load in the office is steady. Uni news will not come in two weeks, information booklet has already been produced, and the big advertising campaign will not start till mid-July. Even the media department guys are playing The AGE cross-word in the office. Oh well, I was told that when the person who in charge of the advertising department comes back from Sydney on Thursday, I would wish I can have one of this relaxing day in the office like yesterday.

My skin is bleeding everywhere, from nose to finger, from ankle to toes. Melbourne winter is very dry despite more rains than the summer. Bandaid is covering every wounds, but bleed is still seep out from the arid skin.

Two of my housemates are on the road to central Australia. They had been asking me about what central Australia was like and things they should prepare to the 11-day route trip. This recalled my memory two years ago. My comment is: it is tough, but it is great fun! I had lost most of the contacts with people who went to the trip in that year, yet those who I still had regular contacts are really good friends of mine now. Some of them have graduated, some moved back overseas, and some are graduating soon. Everyone moves on their track of like. Hopefully I will see one or two of them again soon.

Another aspect of Singapore I heard last night was quite shocking. Sing, a friend of mine who just graduate from Melbourne post-graduate commerce, told me that her Singaporean friends were crazy workaholic. They reviewed a small assignment 10 times before they handed it in. They are perfectionist and do not enjoy life as a human should do. Scary isn’t it? Many Singaporean say that I am the only one they know who want to go to Singapore. This decision may be wrong, but I determine to enter into the crazy work swirl next year, regardlessness.

First day at work

Today is the first day of work in the media office. Nice people and interested work. The first task I did was to read the daily media clipping from a commissioned media-gathering firm and then filtered out useful media news story to the university academic staff. The second thing was to send out a media release to different publication journalists, hopefully one of them would write a story on the topic we sent. That is the work of media department. On the publication side, I learnt their work on lay out, paper material, producing handbooks, course information booklets, banners, etc. Finally, I found a chance to talk to the advertising staff – Palm. She was happy to take me on board, given that the they always spin around for not having enough staff. Most of the university ad is in print, and they work with a local ad agency Adcorp. Hmm… I cant wait to put my hands on their work!

I have a corn on my foot. There is nothing interesting on this small matter. The hilarious thing is, I bought the external used pad, put it over the corn, replaced the pad everyday, everyday goes fine till the last pad, then I found that I did not put the medicine in the pad! I had wasted five pads to cover my corn and trying to choke it off. Stupid girl!

Build your own life

I went window shopping with Kim on Chapel street on Thursday. I seldom go to Chapel; the farthest I had been to was Jam Factory, where the village cinema locates. There are a lot of “brand” clothing shops on that famous Melbourne boutique street – expensive and styleless. Clearly I am not a fashioned girl, contrasted to many girls at my age. The only thing I was looking for was a Bikini! To propel myself wake up in a cold winter morning, swimming has been put on my weekly schedule now. My old swimsuit has already been worn out and loosely pulls on my body. Since January, I keep reminding dad to buy me a new one in China, and he is like “OK! OK!” and then turns around and totally forget about it. I am stinging on the other hand, and do not want to spend more than I should on buying a two-piece “cloth”. Before I can spot on an affordable and styleness one, I think I still have to bear wearing the old one, as long as my old mate does not fall off while I am swimming.

Today was a pleasant day: a fantastic weather coupled with a companionable chick-chat with my ex-workmate (Kitty), who got married last year and recently bought her own house after two years of hard working. She and her husband are from north-China provinces. Both have been working extremely hard to settle their own life in Australia. Although they do not have an admirable salary, they are content with the life they build up with their hands. When I told them my plan of moving to Singapore, they all strongly supported my decision. They said, it was easy for me to reallocate while I was still young and did not have that many commitments. I could easily pack a bag, bought a ticket and fly to a new place to start my life again. I may make a wrong decision to move, I may see others further down the career track than I do, I may … there are too many uncertainties ahead, but as I have already made up my mind to walk down this path, I should not regret and strike hard for my success.

End of exam celebration

Today is fully relaxing. I had great time shopping, working and eating. A Japanese Teriyaki chicken don marked the start of Lina and mine shopping route in the Melbourne city precinct. We compared and miss match several times until we lost our patient and decided to pick a tie at random for the shirt Lina bought for her boyfriend’s graduation commencement in England. After guy’s stuff, we headed down to QV and bought ourselves a pair of office high heals as a reward.

I then hurried back to work. It was a great night at work, as only three “young” girls stay till close, no bitches around. What we did in the last one and a half hour was to eat and chat. A quarter mud cake, a Tira Misu cake and a Moka ice-cream bulged my belly out like a ball. I have not had such a late night sweet for a long time. This hang-up is unhealthy, however, once in a while could make myself feel content. As my boss says, “You have to have some pretense so as to have a life!”

Every week is the same week

近呢半年来, I fall into a Sunday routine: wake up before 8:30am, wash my flimsy hair, do all the laundry and clean up. At 9:10am, I will be enjoying a fruitful brekkie and watching Sunday business program on Channel Nine. After washing up the dishes, I head down to library to catch up with the weekly study I left behind. At about 3pm, I will stroll my way to VicMkt for my grocery shopping. On the way, I would pick up some unhealthy snacks. Carrying bags of groceries, I then head back to library to read the Thursday Media section on the Australian. Most of the time I will be back home at around 4:30. Lay down my hustling body, and enjoy the half an hour reading of the week. When the hour hands points at 5:45pm, I then go downstairs to take back my laundry. The next hour or so, I will be folding and ironing my clothes with the taped Desperate House Wives or the Lost showing in TV. Sometimes I may have dinner, but most of the time I choose to skip. Time slips to 7:45pm, I pick up the phone and talk with grandma for 20 minutes or so. Soon after put down the phone, I will use the Optus free time to catch up with friends with lengthy chick talks. Swiftly, nine o’clock already, flows feelings spurts out of my heart and are transformed into writing. Surf the net for a little while, yawn then starts to kick in. At 11:30pm, I am zizz in bed if no late night call from overseas.

After reading this bromidic Sunday life description, have you noticed anything missing? … The thing that is missing is human interaction! I do not talk to a real human face-to-face. Although technology has advanced our lives in a great pace, it can not make an amendment to is human touch.

Although my recent life is as simple as this, I miss the feeling of home when I lived in Drummond. The person I miss the most on every Sunday evening is Big C. I will not re-describe our life to bore the reader again, I just want to emphasis some enjoyment will last long in memory.

A lot of people finished their exams last week. People in small subjects, such as me, are suffering from exam stress as well as the larks from those who could go out and celebrate end of exam one week before us. I see students in (Advanced)microeconomic and marco studying in the past few days; their notes are full of graphs and calculations. Poor guys! Poor us! I wish I could be a free bird, like the one flied into the library study hall this afternoon.

Economic week

I was looking up the floor directory in the economic and commerce building, and coincidentally looked across the broad to the Melbourne Economic subject list. In fact, there are not many steps (subjects) for you to walk to the top. Intro à Inter à Micro à Advance à Thesis! Certainly, there are some side subjects that assist you to apply these core theories in the real world, which are the subjects I am doing right now. I like Micro (not Macro which is quite contrast to the others) and 巧妙的avoid all the statistic subjects. Economy is fascinating, yet it is not the field I would go any further than undergraduate level. On top of that, this field work as a value added to my media “academy” and I don’t think statistic models will assist me in terms of career progression or skill development. One more economic subject then I will finish my short life as a junior economist.

Past few days I was entrenched in the library. Sometimes I question myself: “Do I need to spend so much time on studying?” The unchanged fact is I was born serious to everything. My last year of education makes study more valuable to me. I don’t know when I will be back into this kind of student life again, not in a few years I think.

I was caught up by Bryan last night to come back to library to “assist” him for the economy paper. Not making much progress as expected. He was tired after the econometric exam. Instead, we were chatting widely for whatever topic we could grab on; mostly are on exams and careers in anyhow. Then, Katieya joint in. This Ukraine girl is going exchange to Boston in August. How excited is that! I wish I could go exchange as well!

a fulfiling day

I had a very satiate today. Three full meals were consumed at the right amount at the right time and cooked with right ingredients. This seems normal to most of people, but for me was unusual. Most of the time I could only have time for two meals at the most. Anyway, my allergy spot starts to crawl on my back, as such a fulfilment for my stomach.

The more I talk to the others around in Melbourne Uni, the more I realize how hard working the others are, so am I. I am going to have a pack mid-year break with lots of commitment. Here is the list:

1.Start working full time for Melbourne Publishing and Media Office on 27th June.
2.Volunteering for ATO tax help at the last week of June till October.
3.Assist Fitzroy Legal Service on Thursday night (6:30 ~ 9:00pm) in three weeks time.
4.Working in hospitality in two places.
5.Weekly dance lesson on every Sunday @ Viva.

Actually it is not much. Most of the commitments are just junior positions, as I gave up my previous experience and start something in a completely different industry.

Tired already. Good night. For those who have exams tomorrow – GOOD LUCK!

A tough one

I was asked by the girls in the restaurant for how to say “any chance?” in Chinese? Thought for a few seconds, I still could not think of a suitable phrase as our Chinese is very CONSERVATIVE. So I told them: “We just do it!” This classic answer deserved a good laugh.

My mandarin capability drops a thousand mile, despite I am living with four other mandarin speakers. Today, I could not even say “spill the water” in mandarin.

Sitting for a three-hour exam was bad enough, be worse off, there were faults in the question! I understand why there are so many economy crack down in the world, it is bloody complicated and unpredictable. Even in the simple undergraduate model, faults are still unavoidable. After the sweating three hours, our Development Economy students said to our lecturer: “Thanks for your teaching, we really enjoyed it … not the exam though!” Undeniable, it was a tough one. Anyway, it has gone. I start panicking with the “aggression” “testified” “variable” marketing economy =[

Marriage

I finally had a nice eight-hour sleep last night by ACCIDENT. My clock was pity my little rest and somehow made it run one and a half hour late than the normal time. Unaware of the bright outside the window, I adjusted two clocks in the house before I realized my alarm clock was wrong.

Despite I am under the exam pressure, there is another matter lingering in my mind at the same time. My aunt is going to divorce. I know this will happen someday as no trust exists between them anymore. It is really sad. Their problem is money conflict. Unshedded their Chinese heritage, family is taken as priority. The problem is: whose family should come first and for how much. For years, they are arguing about how to divide their money and give back to each family members. Each keeps their own money from their small dry cleaning shop, secretly. Little by little, trust faded. As they both confess, if there is no money issue involved, their marriage will be blissful.

I also found out a lot of family history when I talked with aunt last night. Grandma’s image is degraded. Aunt was forced to separate from her six-year long last boyfriend because grandma wanted her to go overseas, or more precisely, grandma wanted to go overseas. This sacrifice is understandable, given the Chinese domestic social environment back in that time. I just fall into a soul-searching when I see grandma is so unhappy and grandpa is confine with no friends in these years. A lot of time, we can not choose how to live. My generation is lucky enough to choose where to go with our life. We are blessed in grace.

Our family has a “tradition” of marrying girls off to overseas. Several cousins were married off by merely seeing photos. I am a lot luckier than them. But grandma and aunt still wanted me to stay in Melbourne and get my parents out of China. That was their intension to sponsor me to come here. Yet, just two months ago, they changed their mind and accepted the fact that I did not like here and would leave here to Singapore next year. Grandma even said, it would be good for your parents to come to VISIT Australia!

who see my cup?

Someone in my house take my beloved cracked cup! It must be in one of my housemates room, sipping under a lip not mine. Can you please give it back to me? For you, it is just a 50c opp-shop cup; but for me, it has sharing the happiness and sadness time with me in the last three years.

I am a very fuzzy person that wants everything done comply to my rules, although I have learnt to compromise and lessen my arrogant. Living in a big house is not that I feel comfortable with. Maybe next year, I will move out to find somewhere smaller. By that time, I don’t need to live close to Uni and can choose to live in the other site of the city.

Play hard, work hard, study hard and die in bliss. After playing hard in last week, I have been studying very hard in this week. Today, I moved up to the stage of work hard – 13 hours shift. Tomorrow still has to wake up at 7:30am to finish the practice exams before my first paper on Tuesday.

Some people are lucky to be born with pools of cares which are built up from money. The typical one is Paris Hilton. They have no fear to be gossiped about, and enjoy splurging in a cosy life without shame. Nevertheless, no need to admire. I am happy to be who I am, why should I admire? So, why should you?

Exam time!

Things are cumulating to kill me in pain. Once in every month I cannot eat, cannot drink, suffering from bloating and pain. No matter how prominent feminism is, we can not our systemic circulation trap.

The experience of sitting next to the library drop window for 10 hours, or facing a computer in an overheating computer lab till 2am is not unusual for most Melbourne uni students. Very unfortunately, I am one of them. Paying a high price to suffer knowledge infusion.

Fragile Organic matter

Have been busy with the final assignment and next week’s exam, I went back home not until 2am in the last two nights. I am still energizing. Pressure plus pressure equals energy, that is a golden university student formula.

I went back to see my grandma. I have not seen her for a month! Every time I go to visit her, always bring back loads of food. She transfers her love into food, which will fed me up in the next two weeks.

Broke two eggs in three days! Eggshell is such a fragile organic matter that cracks easily. The content was eager to burst out, without eyes and sensors, the embryo live wants to see the world.

Job application pic

I draw this for my job application: http://www.yongfook.com/printclub/display.php?id=2644

Dance Salsa

How could a guy like him last all night long? Hey, hey, don’t mistake me, I mean dancing for the whole night. Kenny, Victoria, Sunny and me went down the nicely ambient-lighted stairs onto a high polished dance floor at the basement of Park Hyatt last night at 10:30pm. The venue was already filled in quite a lot of dancers sweating with the salsa beat. A Cuban live band was playing vibrating salsa music with people flipping around, regardless beginners or gurus. Kenny, my newly met dance buddy, asked different chicks on the dance floor for dance for every new song. Four full hours non-stops tapping his feet on the floor, I teased him as the “hottest” guy on that night. Differently, I took a “conservative” approach, stood aside waiting for guys to come forward to me.

There was an embarrassing moment that a guy was such a prof that I could not follow. At the end, he asked me nicely: “Am I too much for you?” Yeah, every salsa dancer knows Park Hyatt is the place where you can catch those prime dancers.

I was fascinated with couples of dancers. I felt like watching a professional performance. Kenny even yelled out: “How could you do that?” Compared to them, our dance sport’s gold medallists are merely starters.

It was a relaxing night, the only thing I could pick on was they only played Salsa music; we were excited with the one and a half cha-cha and two Meringue they played for the whole night!

Knowing these dedicated dancers, I don’t think I will be bored in this coming mid-freaky-Melbourne-winter-holiday. There are a lot of dance spot we can hook onto. Hopefully, we would not become the people described by Freddy as “Clubbing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday … working to earn money in the rest of the days.”

I am so jealous to those students who have already secured a job for next year. They have no worries for their next step in life. Luckily, although I can not find any lucks outside campus, I have secured a work experience with the university Media office and will start working straight after exams. More details are still need to be confirmed, but at least I know what I am going to do in the five-week break. I am a person like to plan everything beforehand, although I know realities are always fluid. As long as I know which direction I am heading to, I will then feel relief. Otherwise, I will dire and have to find a way out of!

let's go clubbing

I have again locked myself in front of a computer for two days. Time slips away, days change to nights. I left library at 1am last night, with my head spinning. The happy thing is, two more hours, I will go and do something I haven’t done for years – Clubbing! I know I could not concentrate on study anymore tonight, even if I can, it will not be productive and in good quality. As a reward for half a year of hard work, indeed I did not even go out to pub in 2005, I should find a way to relax. The situation is different from 1st and 2nd year, but it doesn’t mean I can not have a life. On top of that, my assignment is going well, exam will in two weeks. So… let’s relax =]

Job, job and more job!

I have been researching, writing and sending out a number of job applications to Melbourne advertising company and are eagerly waiting for any lucks that might arise. I know it is not easy, but it is not unachievable. As an international student speaking English with an exotic accent, and limited amount of knowledge and experience, the only thing I could do is try harder and think better. Every night I did not go to bed until I felt sick sitting in front of the computer for hours looking and asking for opportunities. I am doing this on a daily base, because it takes up so much time that I spread my application process with my assignments and exam preparations.

So far, I am content with the progress I go with my assignment although it still needs more work on it. Exams stuff have not yet been touched as the first one is in two weeks. Still too far away for me.

I saw Bred Farmer today when I handed in my essay. Although I saw him several times, I had never thought he was such an attractive gay academic lecturer. He swayed back his Crumpler biker bag and wearing a short-sleve-out-long-sleve-in top. He looked no difference from a Melbourne student except for the wist sparkle from his eyes.

Last night in my MYOB short course class, I talked with a girl who had qualification only to Year 12. She is content with her current life and lives no different from those with a degree. Maybe I just know from the surface, but apparently in Australia, degree is not an essential to make oneself happy. In terms of looking for jobs, she gave me a lot of advice, and commented that there were lots of opportunities in the city. In my own world of configuration, I have confronted with two different views of job situation: one from my graduated uni friends who find it hard to get a job, and one from some one with lower qualification and say reasonable paid-jobs are easy to get. My opinion is, one group is looking to high while the other is doing reasonable OK. Giving the welfare and industry reward system in Australia, there really not much difference between these groups. Whereas, what I am looking for is not in Australia.