HEWSO regathering

We had a HEWSO team social gathering yesterday. It was great to see everyone again after the summer project. We talked for hours, exchanging life prospective and ambitious. Kate and I will apply for PR after graduation this year. Sing is going back to H.K. and try to find work in investment bank. Jenny is offered a job from ANZ financial department with an Arts (Linguistic) degree. Eric is going to work for his uncle’s engineering company in the coming summer holiday. James is still pathetic, being late and mess up things, but he is going to enter a Salsa competition in September. *Stay tune for that*

I ran into Stuart, an Aussie guy who had secured a graduate position with P&G in Singapore, on my way to see CMG production on Friday. This bloke is extremely smart and friendly, and he was my first year micro and macro tutor. We had a few minutes of quick chat on our recent life and plans for the future before we ran off. He is going on an exchange to California for his final semester next week and will travel to South America and Europe before he commences his marketing role with P&G in Singapore in March next year. His future is admirable. The condition of work for international company in Singapore is heaps better than local firms, which does not require you to work 7/24 if possible. But, I am not jealous. There is always someone who can do better than yourself; if I always look up without thinking my on own ground, I will never be happy.

A new housemate moved in yesterday, another Chinese girl. If I could choose again, I would not choose to move in such a big house and live with Chinese people. On one hand that I lose a lot of opportunity on practicing my English, on the other hand, there are too many hassles of living with four others.

Community legal service

Last night was my third time to volunteer for the Fitzory Legal Service (FLS). I had a chance to do works at the back instead of working at the front desk. Basically, I had to pre-interview with the “client”, dropped down their case(s), then briefed it to the solicitors at the back and got one who had expertise in the area the matter related to. The first pre-interview case I had was shocking. It was a woman who was tortured by her husband for six hours, leaving her face misplaced. Her husband did not have any conviction and was obviously not charged. She was a single mother with two lovely girls, unemployed, and trying to find justice for her case and seeking compensation for a surgery to fix her face. She could not stop crying when she was telling me her story. Her elder daughter once said: “Mum, you had blood here (eye-brow), here and here.” She used her little finger pointing at her mum’s face. After hearing our (another law student volunteer and me) briefing, Michael (a senior solicitor) came in. The style he made me admire of him was, instead of hearing she waffled the whole story again, he went straight into the point and gave her suggestions ways she could do find justice for herself.

One after another, we had ten clients for the night. Every one of them walked out with great gratitude and thanked us again and again. This kind of satisfaction can not be substituted with a million dollar.

At the end of the night, those solicitors and law students were talking about the structure and subject taught in their law degree. They said commercial law had been pushed up quite a lot as opposed to criminal law in Melbourne law school in the recent years. They thought that as people become more and more money oriented and want to get into the corporate world in any possible way. However, the commercial world is about big fish eats small fish in general. You are using your brain to cumulate your wealth; you are taking away from others rather than giving. I would find it distress.

Get drunk at work

I was a drink runner tonight, a terribly bad one. I dropped the glasses of red wine I carried four times, a beer bottle one time and two glasses of port one time. At the end of the night, my uniform was a motley collection of colours. Although they said nothing to me, I was so embarrassing. Most likely, my unbalance was from the Sambuca I drank at the earlier of my shift.

Uni campus gets the liveliness back again. I will miss the busy steps running around me, the noise coming from everywhere I go, and much and much more.

Another year in CTG camp (New photos uploaded in cloris.multiply.com)

Same as last year, we played, we talked, we yelled and we act in a remote camp site for three days and two nights. There were a great mixed of ethnic Chinese in this camp and we spoke Chinese in different accent as well as dialect: Malaysian Chinese/English, ABC English, ABC mandarin, Hong Kong Cantonese, Mainland Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin etc. Basically, most of us have to communicate in three different languages. Unlike MUOSS which is dominated by mainly Singaporean and Malaysian, CTG is an epitome of the diversity of Chinese community in the Asia-Pacific region.

Cultural gap was diminished in the camp, although we all spoke differently. I tried to get on well with others, only realized that I had lagged behind my Chinese culture since last year. I misunderstood their slangs and found myself block out during team activities. A lot of things need to be picked up in the production if I want to heavily involve again this year.

I am merely a set/backstage crew this year, and will not be doing any leader position in CTG this year. Unlike most of the others, I know I can not commit myself as much as last year. I am working four nights a week, two days work-placement, probably looking for some other cash-in jobs over the weekend. On top of that, I will need to prepare for PR, check up visa and labour market in Singapore. I want to keep myself busy, but I have to sort out priority before my final semester kicks start next week.

My final twelve-week of study in my life starts from next week. How scary is that! Every time I think about my days after graduation, a mixed feeling burst out in my mind. On one hand I will miss the wonderful uni life I had gone through, on the other hand, I a bit worry about my career path. Some of my friends (local) has already got a job and know what to do next year. For me, I have to take a big break before head down to Singapore next year. I may be jealous of my housemates’ school life, my friends’ decent income; I may worry about slowing down my brain cells because of no mental challenges as those come from school work.

I don’t want to let my brain go dead, which I have already sense a bit of that in the CTG camp. I realise that I have short memory span, which is contrast to what I used to be; I am a bit draw back and do not like to work out a solution for a group task. I know I would be good at being a sectary, but I don’t want to stuck in a junior position and doing things I don’t know for the rest of my life. There are two ways to get out of this unpleasant situation: get into graduate program or continue studying in Post-graduate.

Recently, there was big fight between our advertising manager Ev and the MPSO “boss” Bruce. Then our advertising unit started gossiping about these two top person and the office atmosphere was strained suddenly. In the media field, to get a job done, and get it done well not only needs the primary work is be good, but more importantly is the relationship between the boss and the staff. If the top-down relationship goes into a wrong track, work can be really degraded. The office politics is the first lesson to be learnt as in the communication process.

Last Wednesday was super boring. There was no night out, no date, no shopping, no work. I ended up reading in the Borders bookshop for three hours. Rubbing my sore eyes, I went home and had an early dream.

Sunday AFL

I haven’t hit down to the dance floor for ages. There are always things that disturb my dancing schedule: was working last Sunday, visited grandma this Friday and accompanied with a group of Chinese students today. Next Sunday I will be in the annual CTG camp. Another miss to dance.

The group of Chinese students are the winners of an English oral competition. Their prize is a week visit to Melbourne. Today is their first day. Catherine, one of my colleague in the media unit, and me went with them to see the AFL in Telstra dome. They asked me a lot of questions about the game. Unfortunately, I knew nothing more than kicking the ball through the poles and you can used hands to touch the ball. Some of them quickly adapted to the Aussie way of yelling and clapping during the match, but some girls fell asleep halfway into the match, me included. After the match, we then bring them down to Lygon street to taste the proper Italian food other than Pizza Hut and Domino. After sending them back to their hotel, on our way back home, Cath and me found that we had the same worry as me that they might not be interested in watching such an Aussie culture. Lucky nothing went wrong today.

CTG starts building sets tomorrow. Hopefully it will not be the three-meter height stands like last year.

Pigpond

We encounter a tedious client recently. He requested us to posit the sponsorship in a prominent position, which would overshadow the actual headline. The final ad was bounded back from that client's email account before we could approve it to the agency. Ev was swearing him inside out and eventually found that she put his email address "@bigpond" as "@pigpond". We had a good laugh after sending the ad away.

I have to correct my comment to the War of the World movie. As it is base on a scientific fiction, all the aliens things now seem to be rational. But still, I am still not impressed by the movie except for the visual and audio effect. The recent released movies, both art house and Blockbuster, do not inspire my mood to walk into cinema. They are telling tales on themes are either violent or alternative culture, but not really on the construction of the storylines, which is quite disappointed.

A slow day

We had a slow day in the office today. Surprisingly enough, the phones stopped ringing after 2pm, which gave Ev a little bit of relief since the absence of Palm last week. What I did was talking with Palm about family, her overseas experience, and cooking. As she had a middle East husband, she told me a lot about Arabic and Mediterranean food she or her family had made. She likes to talk about leisure life and things she does in weekends. One view poped up into my mind immediately, as I am going to leave this relaxing kind of life style and enter into a fast beat work place, I should enjoy more and do something I should do as in my age.

Tonight is my second volunteer night in the legal service centre. It was much busier than last Thursday and the solicitors and para-legals were very engaging in talking and explaining things to me. I understand more legal terminologies and know more about matters that rise from our everyday life. I will be doing this once a fortnight, and hopefully I could continue doing this till I leave Australia.

Grandma fell down from the stairs in my aunt’s house last week. I did not know until Monday. Lucky enough, despite falling from such a height, she only broke one rib bone and cracked another.

She still likes to criticise Aunt Mable and I a sort of in a “um…ah…” kind of conversation with her. I don’t want to get involved in her dispute with Aunt Mable; I am sick of hearing from their “you said, she said” points of views.

A farewell night

It was a bit sad tonight as I finished my last shift at the place I had worked for one plus years. Monday night is always a good night for work, not busy and less stress. I could always talk to the girls work with me and discuss TV program that is new. I like the boss, Felicies, as well. He is shifty, but a nice decent man. Although I can only understand half of his Italian-English, he has promised to drive me with his half million dollars Ferrari to his beach house, one day. Not a bad place to work, yet no one can be trusted. Many hugs and kisses at the end of my shift *tears running out* This big and famous Italian restaurant will still franchise out in the Asia-Pacific region, but I would still like to try something new before I come back to work there at the end of this year.

As a student, I always change jobs regardless they are on professional or laboured base. There are so many opportunities out there. If I do not step out to try something new, I will never become better. Regarding work in the office, I started from an office runner then moved up to work on real job orders, my experience grows as I get older. These days, I really work very hard as I have an aim to strive for.

I am really fed up with the attitude Aussie do their works. They are laid-back and always shift off the consequences from one to the other. There are a long list of cases I have encountered. Today is a classic one. I had cancelled three meetings in order to attend the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) Tax Help training session, yet got called up just 15 minutes before the training session and was told no need to come. Instead, I had to resubmit my application form which they might lost during their smoke break. Hello, I am helping your office, and you give me the s@@t *nonsense*

A new place, a new life, a new started…

Naming “little Italy” in Melbourne, Lygon st has the most expensive Italian menu but not the best. Compared to the old one I used to work on in Carlton, where the boss makes its own source and sweets, this fancied one is more commercialised. The dishes are upper-class feel, yet the ingredient are made from factory. Another surprise is that none of the chiefs or kitchen hands in the kitchen are Italian! The Italian dishes are composed with different hands from all around the world. I think the most traditional Italian meal and atmosphere I have ever tried and seen are those made by the Carlton one.

There are quite a lot of people from China and H.K. choose to have dinner on Lygon st. Most of them know nothing about Italian food and I can overhear they say: “吾知咩来嘎, 不过试下啦.” It is similar to the situations at the time I worked in Japanese restaurants. Now I know well with two cuisines, plus Chinese food background, I don’t think I will have problem finding myself a job anywhere in the world. The warning is, waitressing job is the last step I should take, otherwise, I would waste the time and effort I have put in in the last four years’ of education.

Last night, only Flora and me worked in the last two hours before close. As we are both Asian, Flora said to me: “呧人会不会想他们是进了唐餐馆啊?” I made a eerie face as I would like to laugh but with no more energy after 15 hours of work.

事与愿违

世事往往都是事与愿违, 有些东西无论怎样努力去争取, 都是无法得到的. This is not uncommon.

The results come out today. I have done much better than previous years, yet much lower than my expectation. Especially in Arts, I was told that I had been doing a great job in writing stuffs, whereas the outcomes and comments from the lecturers are totally different from what they had said to my draft. *disappointed* I see myself already finish with the Arts degree as the subjects I will be doing next semester are not under its areas at all. Melbourne Arts has a prestige reputation. But, I am sorry, I am just not one of them – arrogant, boring and fusty. I don’t mean to be bias, some of them are really good, but most of them are just too “academic” and trying to protect their “scholarly” status rather than being dedicate to students. I like the stuff they teach in Arts; I just had had enough with the Professors, Doctors, Deans and those crass admin staffs.

Full on days

These two days were quite eventful as I start shadowing the advertising manager, Ev(eline) in the office. She was pretty full on as there are only two staff plus one two-day casual staffs in the advertising unit of the whole Melbourne Uni. Worse of all, one of them has been sick for two whole week while the other one (Ev) was in a Sydney conference for three days. I sat by her site, reading emails with her, seeing her sending out emails, calling the agency and clients, attending groups and client meetings, etc, etc. I find advertising more and more enjoyable than the other areas I was probing round. Although the works I am or will be working on in this small office is pretty much at the basic level, giving that my language level in a foreign country, I don’t think I can do much better than that. I have tried my best to get a job in the agency, or even in the customer service area, but I cant get the ideal job I want. Instead of pulling my hair and honing for the fantasy, I don’t mind start from scratching as long as I have no regrets.

The other thing is I will start my first trial in a fancy Italian restaurant on Lygon st. Obviously my pay will go up (at least $13+ phr cash, I think). The things I worry about are I am to weak to do three plates carry and my English may not be good enough compared to other workers. I will try my best, as I got this job from an Italian friend, I don’t want to let her down. I am such a person that once has made up a goal, I will do my best to achieve it. If I am reluctant to change, as most of you will do without being aware of, I will fag at working until I leave this country. Also, I want to save as much as I can before I fly down to Singapore next year.

I went to watch War of the World last night just before mid-night with Tina and a local grown 香港仔. My focus here is the movie *disappointed* The Hollywood movies are a sort of turning into a vicious circle now – crap genre, excessive visual impact and chucking in couples of famous actors/actress. I am not a big fan of mass culture.

Guilt from feminism

Although it is winter in Melbourne, I have been eating quite a lot of ice-cream these days. I have tasted almost all the favours in the two famous ice-cream shops on Lygon and the refined Italian ice-cream in the place I work. Guilt arises, despite I am currently reading Naomi Wolf’s Beauty Myth. Feminism is still not my type; I am a social animal under the influence of people around.

I have spent an hour scurried around city to find a shoe brush for my dance shoes. I started from a super market, then was referred to a shoe repair shop, and then a hardware store, followed this direction, I was end up in another shoe repair shop. My shoe brush searching journey was like the Amazing Race, picked clues from one place to another. That !s Melbourne.

Market day

Sunday is the day for housework and shopping. I went with my housemate Adeline to Parham market in South Yarra suburb. Wandering among the organic food and fruit stores, we were finding our ways in the unknown market areas. It is just a small market with some exotic Italian poultry shops. Window shopping is always my way to kill time before the actual “stocking”. I stood in front of a number of poultry windows and enjoyed looking at different meat, cheese and marinated olive on display. I start liking Italian cuisine, giving that I have worked in an Italian restaurant for more than a year. After feeding our eyes with fattening Italian food, our “stocking” action did not take place until we got back to Melbourne city, in the more excited Victoria market.

I found myself could not take in too much sweet at once after I had a cup of ice-cream from the famous gelato shop on Lygon. I also could not eat too much biscuit at a time, which I had already abstained. If I become obsessive with one of each, allergy would not let me go. So what should I do if my teeth start grinding up-and-down? Fruit is my cure. A way to stay healthy and endure the thoughts of obsessive eating.

I have also abstained another addiction – stop lingering myself on a thing I should let go a year ago. It is like opium, only the most determined thought could free the mind and let things go. I am glad that I finally have no feeling at all, although it takes a year.

let's dance salsa

One week in the office, I had not yet tipped my fingers on any real works. I made myself familiar with the workflow and coordination between the four units: media, design, publication and advertising, as well as staffs in this small office. No difference from other Australian SME companies, people are generally nice but lay back, saying more than doing.

I had a good talk with the advertising director on the university advertising works and strategies. From next week on, I will shadow another advertising staff for a week to understand the whole university advertising process. After that, depending on my progress, I will take up some of their work to liase between the faculties (clients) and the ad agency. This is not the ideal job I want to get in the future, but for the undergraduate level, it is far more than enough.

I become salsa additive after the exam. Despite of the classic shitty Melbourne weather this week, I went out to learn new salsa and cha-cha steps almost every night. Hot moves drove out chilly. Dance is the most effective way to keep warm in winter.