Archive for 2009
December 31 2009: Reflections and Resolutions
Filed under Australia & Life & Money & Travel & Uni/Work with 8 Comments
To tell you the truth, I really didn’t give a second thought to the resolutions I made three hundred and sixty five days ago. They were made, then they were forgotten about. For the most part though, the year has been close to planned.
See more of Australia
I took a short four day trip to Adelaide earlier this year, so I did manage to make it to see another part of Australia. The trouble is of course, that everything in Australia is so spread out. Going to another city isn’t simply a matter of driving an hour or two as it may be in Europe or America – I can drive for an hour, and still be in Melbourne!
On a more local note, this year I’ve become well-acquainted with the Melbourne peninsula region and the spectacular beaches it has to offer, rather than limiting myself to suburban beaches. I can only see more exploration up the coast next year, as I get more into water sports!
Get my savings account balance up to $20,000AUD, Get my eBay net earnings up to $6000AUDa year AND Get a job
It didn’t go as smoothly as I would have expected considering I was unemployed for a month in February, and had some unexpected large expenses during the year, but I’m currently sitting comfortably with $22,000AUD+ in my bank account. It probably helped that Dylan is, if not equally as frugal as me, is a man of simple tastes who prefers curling up in bed together with a DVD over paying $50AUD for two people to go to the movies. It makes a nice change from the extravagant and/or deadbeat people I’ve been with in the past.
The boost to my bank account is surprising actually, because eBaying and my online trading (buying cheap in second hand stores and re-selling online) fell. eBaying was a large source of my savings for the last three months of last year, with about $1500AUD profit in online trading. This year, I managed to pull in just about $1760AUD – though the majority of that was concentrated in the early months of the year when I wasn’t as run off my feet at work. By the time May rolled around, I was working close to six days a week (if not seven days), and had no opportunity to casually drop into a second-hand store to check out merchandise. It’s been like this since May – between work and other commitments, I simply have no time to shop for cheap stock – and probably won’t, for months ahead. In any case, $1760AUD p.a. isn’t bad for a secondary source of income that I treat as a hobby.
In terms of jobs though, I did alright. True, I lost my retail job when I came back from my three week trip to the UK, and went through nearly a month and a bit of unemployment (and subsequent depression, because I’d never been unemployed before in my adult life), but since then, I’ve held a number of jobs! From the administrative position at a medical training organisation, to the casual retail role in a baby store, and the first real job with career potential and real responsibility that I’m now in (as well as a few other small jobs along the way!), I’ve gained a full year’s of worthy and useful work experience.
Comment on a blog a day that lies outside of my usual blog circle
Um…no. I didn’t account for the severe lack of time I would find myself plagued with for the majority of the year (work, etc.). So no. I could barely even manage a comment a week, let alone a comment a day.
So For 2010…
…what kind of resolutions should I make, considering that chances are, I’ll completely forget about them by the time the 2nd of January rolls around? I’m going to keep it simple:
- Continue to average Distinctions and/or High Distinctions in my Masters studies next year
- Accumulate $30,000AUD in my account.
- Visit a country I’ve never been to before. I want to go to America, but timing is going to be hard because of work commitments – I may have to settle for a week or two in a south-east Asian island nation instead.
- Have more fun. It’s very easy for someone of my workaholic nature to get sucked into the cycle of working seven days a week without any thought as to maintaining a good work/life balance. I need to learn to say no to shifts, and yes to meeting up with friends.
Happy New Year to everyone!
December 29 2009: The Obligatory Post-Festive Season Entry
Filed under Family & Life & Money & Relationships/Men & Style & Uni/Work with 4 Comments
Despite the whole not-very-festive environment I’ve been brought up in, I think it’s almost obligatory for personal bloggers to have a post-festive season entry summarising everything they’ve eaten, received, and done? Far be it for me to flout this unwritten rule of the blog community – prepare yourself for long-windedness.
Christmas Eve
I actually worked for most of Christmas Eve, packing up boxes for an impending office move (as previously mentioned). This was about half of the total amount of boxes – it was a long, sweaty and dusty day. I did manage to get home by 5pm to clean myself up before heading over to my aunt’s for an Asian-style Christmas Eve dinner though. This essentially means that all the ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ bring a dish (Asian cuisine of course!), and we all stuff our faces with food. Chicken wings, lamb chops, potato salad, curry and vermicelli noodles with pickled veggies? That’s our version of Christmas fare.
Then of course, the adults start playing endless rounds of mahjong and drinking endless cups of tea as soon as dinner is over, while the children are relegated to a back bedroom to entertain ourselves the best we can. We might be in our twenties and late teens, but my cousins and I (and the children of other family friends) are still considered to be the ‘children’. Admittedly we fit into our designated roles remarkably well – we played Taboo and Pictionary with a few glasses of wine each, well into the early hours of the morning.
As a side note, I am vaguely communicating with my parents again, in that we can be in the same room without screaming at each other. Polite conversation with my mother is a good start though, as well as the fact that my father deigned to speak a sentence to me: “Refill my cup of tea”.
Christmas
I woke up on Christmas Day at Dylan’s house with presents to open! As a joke gift, he bought me a Hello Kitty candy set – as an Asian female, I’m obviously supposed to love Hello Kitty. (Which I do, secretly, but don’t tell him that because it’ll only reinforce the stereotype.) My real gift though, was a body board – and to celebrate Christmas, we drove two hours down the coast and spent the day at Cape Paterson together so that I could have my first ever body-boarding experience. We could have gone to a more local beach, but as Melbourne is situated within a bay, he decided it would be more exciting to drive further out past the peninsula so that we could surf in the actual ocean with real waves, rather than within a calmer bay.
I had a blast – absolutely an overall awesome day. We’re now contemplating getting into snorkeling as a hobby, as the coastline around Cape Paterson is absolutely littered with rock pools and marine life. I’m considering buying snorkeling sets for his birthday in February, though I guess ideally we should have the equipment by mid-January when the weather will be calmer and it’ll be easier to snorkel in the open ocean.
Oh, and I made him a type of mini-hamper gift with things he likes – a selection of different nuts from the market (walnuts, almonds, macadamias), a bottle of our favourite wine (Brown Brothers Moscato), a new coffee percolator and some organic coffee beans (he’s sick of drinking instant coffee at my place, so now he can have actual coffee), and some home-made dark chocolate with ginger. Nothing remarkable, just a few things I threw together into a basket, but he seemed to like it, so all is good.
Boxing Day
Boxing Day is a big day for my cousin and I. It’s traditionally one of the biggest retail days of the year with enormous post-Christmas discounts, and we have gotten into the habit of taking full advantage of the sales. We ended up shopping from eight in the morning to eight at night, across two different shopping centres. I ended up buying:
- A woollen underlay for my mattress – $89.95 from $299
- Leopard print micro shorts – $9.95 from $69.95
- A print top – $14.95 from $79.95
- Earrings – $5 from $14.95
- A headband – $5 from $29.95
I was remarkably controlled this year in my spending – the woollen underlay was my biggest purchase by far, but as I had been needing one since I moved out, and managed to pick up a trans-seasonal one (works in both winter and summer) for a third of the original price, I think it was a justified purchase. The top and shorts were a bit of a splurge as they’re really too casual and ‘fun’ for work, but I really think it’s about time I start dressing my age. The accessories were just cute cute cute, and cheap enough for me.
Overall, it was a fairly chilled couple of days. There was no blatant displays of consumerism (sure I went sale shopping, but didn’t go overboard!), and I only stuffed myself with food for one meal, so it was probably a million times more controlled and less indulgent than most people’s Christmases!
December 25 2009: 1000: Christmas
Filed under Life with 15 Comments
This a very quick 1000th post to wish you all a Merry Christmas. :)