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July 4 2009: Changing Our Eating Habits

Filed under Life with 5 Comments

Mr. M and I do not eat heathily. It’s a lifestyle thing – we spend a lot of time just lounging around in the evening, and by the time we actually realise that we’re hungry, it’s usually around 9pm or later. It’s not a time that’s conducive to cooking up a healthy feast in the kitchen, nor to even slapping together a simple sandwich. Instead, we find ourselves driving out for take-away food: chips with gravy, KFC, Macca’s, kebabs, basically whatever’s fast, unhealthy, and still open at that time. We’ve found ourselves driving to Macca’s at midnight for their soft serve and apple pie much too many times.

We can’t keep doing this. Not only is it really bad for our overall health, but it’s really unhealthy for our wallets. If we’re going out for both lunch and dinner, we can easily spend $20AUD a day on take-out food each, which is ridiculous when that same amount could buy a few day’s worth of groceries. Neither of us are financially able to support this kind of habit – he has student debts to pay off, I have a house to save up for, etc.

So, we’ve decided to completely overhaul our eating habits. I have a friend who works as a grocerer – he works at the wholesale produce market and gets fruit and vegetables at cost price. We’ve approached him to supply us with $15AUD worth of fruit and veggies each week – that’s about a full fridge’s worth of produce when you’re buying at cost price. With the produce we’d then:

  1. Make two litres worth of juices every two days as a healthy drink (rather than fizzy or sweet drinks) – from apple juices, carrot juices, celery juices, etc., all mixed up in a blended concoction
  2. Have fruit as a snack
  3. Prepare carrot/celery/etc as snack foods that we can have with different dips and cheese and stuff.
  4. Cook all other vegetables – whether roasting, baking, steaming, stir-frying, whatever.

That way even if we eat out once or twice a week, we’re still having healthy food the rest of the time, which would make a huge difference to both our health and our wallets. I think he’s concerned about his protein intake so he’ll probably grill a steak every now and again – I on the other hand, have never really been a big fan of red meat so could happily give up eating meat when with him and only eat it when we dine out.

In any case, that’s the plan. No more unhealthy food (or at least, less of it!), and a dramatic increase of our intake of fresh produce. Added savings each week, which in turn will put us in a better financial situation that will allow us more options.

July 3 2009: I Found A Job

Filed under Uni/Work with 11 Comments

Just about three weeks ago, I mentioned that I was looking for a new job as I didn’t feel challenged in one of my part-time positions. Well, I found one – less than three weeks after I started seriously applying for jobs in a field related to my Masters studies. I was interviewed yesterday, and they were sufficiently impressed to offer me the position today after having contacted my referees. They were, and I quote, “absolutely blown away by your experience, your communication skills, how personable you were, and the suggestions and comments you made for advancing the organisation and improving its exposure in the community”. What can I say, I interview well.

I’m feeling very employable right now, which makes a nice change to earlier this year when I was unemployed for two months despite applying for about ten jobs each day. Anyway, some details:

  1. It’s an administrative role in a not-for-profit support organisation for social and disability work professionals. The role will include not only day-to-day administrative duties, but also event organisation (for seminars, etc.), membership coordination, marketing, with a strong emphasis too on revamping the organisation’s website and creating a stronger web presence.
  2. It’s a fixed term part-time position at 0.6 EFT. In other words, it’s a three-days-a-week position, for a fixed term of two months.
  3. The organisation is so small that for the time I’ll be there, I’ll essentially be running the whole place by myself. There’s bucketloads of autonomy in the role which I thrive on.

I’ll be handing in my two week’s notice for my other admin position next week – but in the next two weeks, I’ll be working seven day weeks. Two days at my current admin position (to fulfill two week’s notice), three days at the baby store, and I’ve negotiated with my new employers an agreement that for the first two weeks, I’ll work two days rather than the contracted three days. It’s going to be tiring, but I imagine exhilarating at the same time – I’m one of those crazy people who thrive on new work, new experiences, etc.

On a sour note, my parents are concerned that I’m giving up a permanent part-time position for a contracted temporary part-time position, but I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Yes, I may not have that particular job after the two months, but I’ll still have my weekend retail position at the baby store so I won’t exactly be broke. The fact that I’ll be working for a not-for-profit organisation in my chosen career field is much more important than working a permanent dead-end job that I’m bored in. It’s relevant experience that I can add to my resume when I look for another job in the same sector – placing me far above other candidates. It’s the first step along an actual “career path”, and it’s bound to lead to many more steps.

July 2 2009: THAT BLOODY BOY

Filed under Family & Men with 12 Comments

In regards to yesterday’s entry, my thoughts on the situation are fairly clearcut: It’s not acceptable. Yes, relationships are about trust, but it’s also about taking the other party’s feelings and concerns into consideration – you can’t dismiss your partner’s genuine concerns with a simple “you should trust me to do the right thing”. You might trust your partner, but it doesn’t mean that you trust the people they’re around to do the right thing, especially if you’ve never met them before.

Anyway. Last night, Mr. M (I’m actually rather sick of referring to him as Mr. M, so let’s just call him by his actual name from now on: Dylan) and I took my brother out for a cheap and fast dinner at the local Vietnamese restaurant as my parents weren’t home. He commented that my brother was incredibly socially awkward – when I left them alone briefly, he’d tried to talk to him about gaming and stuff as that’s what my brother’s into, but only got monosyllabic answers in return. And he’s right – my brother is incredibly socially awkward, much worse than I was at that age.

My brother is intelligent for his age, and academically gifted, but he simply doesn’t know how to make small talk, or to keep a conversation going. He lacks social skills, would never approach anyone voluntarily to ask for anything, and at the first party he goes to, I can guarantee you that he’d be the wallflower whereas I was always the one at the centre of the dancefloor. Truthfully, I don’t even know how to help him overcome this problem. You can’t teach social skills – I’ve tried to encourage him to go out with his friends and to have friends over, but it’s simply not something he’s interested in.

Anyway, the above was somewhat of a tangent. The real point of the entry: after dinner, we went home to find my parents home. Dylan came in for a few minutes to say hello to my parents, as part of our larger plan to make the concept of him as my boyfriend acceptable to my parents. The theory is that when they get used to seeing him around as a “friend”, they’ll be more likely to take the news well when I tell them that we’re dating. That’s the theory anyway, whether or not it works is another matter.

He left about fifteen minutes later, with the idea that I would follow a half hour after that as I was going to spend the night at his place. His departure was hassle-free. Mine wasn’t.

I made a quick exit, but my brother informs me today that when I left, my father questioned him, asking if Dylan was my boyfriend. He was smart enough to say “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous”, but I think my father’s getting suspicious. Eep.

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