There are also some other smaller projects that I’d like to work on in the next few weeks:

1. Book all accommodation for our trip to China in April/May. I’ve already worked out a rough itinerary, so would like to start locking in some accommodation!
2. Start brushing up on my Mandarin language skills. They’re very rusty as I haven’t used Mandarin regularly for the past four years. I’ve already borrowed some audio language guides from my local library that I want to transfer to my iPhone so I can practice on my commute.
3. Start reading up on research methods for my last unit of study for my Masters. I should receive this year’s materials towards the end of this month, but because I have last year’s materials already, I can start doing some pre-reading.
4. Learn how to use Kieran’s new Nikon D3100 DSLR that he won the day before he left for Japan. He left it with me, so I might as well teach myself the basics so that I can appropriate the camera whenever I feel like being “artistic”. Inverted commas are actually necessary, because I’m not artistic in the traditional sense.

I also have a monthly pass to a gym in the city that I purchased for $19 off a Daily Deal site. It expires at the end of February, so I guess I should start going. I need to go at least four times to make the $19 investment worthwhile. Wish me luck?

I want to be a giver. I am, comparably speaking, really lucky. I have my health, my job, my family and friends, a roof over my head and food on my table. I have discretionary income – I can take holidays, buy clothes I don’t need and see movies I’ll forget about in a month. Not everyone is as lucky as I am, and I am constantly reminded of that working in a charity. Every day, I encounter families whose young children can die overnight from hypoglycaemia. Mothers who get up every hour to check to make sure their child is still alive. I don’t have anything like that to worry about – I am one of the lucky few. So I want to give back. I donate my time on the weekend fundraising at events for the organisation I work for…but I can do more. I have more time and skills to contribute. I just need to find charities and organisations who need me after work and on weekends.

I want to be more of my own person. This was never really a problem for me when I was living in Melbourne. I was never dependent on a partner to the point of only spending time with him or his friends. However, after moving to Sydney where I don’t have an extensive friendship network like I do in Melbourne, it’s very easy to tag along to everything that Kieran does, and spend all my time with his friends. I don’t have a reason to turn down an invitation, because I never have other plans. This needs to change. It’s not healthy. So I need to build my own friendship network. I’ve been attending trivia nights on Wednesdays with a regular group of people who I met on Sydney Livejournal (who are now Facebook friends, who are coming to my housewarming, etc.), which is a great start. I’m very conscious though, of the fact that I can and should do more. I’ve signed up for an account at Meetup, and I just need to find the right group for me. It’s an ongoing project.

I want to be recognised for my abilities. In other words, I don’t want to make excuses. I’m only going to use one example here – and that’s my ability as a cook. For the longest time, I’ve always claimed that I’m not a cook because I was never really allowed in the kitchen growing up – it was very clearly my mother’s dominion. I’ve loudly and proudly proclaimed my expertise in creating beans on toast or two minute noodles. That’s all a dirty lie. I’m actually a really good cook. I don’t follow recipes, and I don’t meal plan. I cook from instinct, and it always turns out well. Case in point – my attempts at salmon and chicken. I need to stop hiding behind a facade of incompetence to lower people’s expectations of me, and admit that I’m actually pretty awesome.¹

I want to be realistic about my capabilities. More often than not, I’m my own worst enemy – I think I’m capable of doing more than what is actually humanly capable. Case in point. I’m also Captain Possible at work – no matter how much work people throw at me, I won’t stop to say that it’s not manageable – I’ll find a way to do it all even if it means staying till 8pm every night and taking work home on weekends (which believe me, I don’t get paid enough to do). So I need to a) learn to say no/stop; and b) be realistic enough to look at what is actually possible. This is not only for my own benefit in terms of stress levels, but also for others around me as they recognise what is possible and in what timeframes.

I want a lot more. But this is a start.

¹Note: I still think it’s perfectly acceptable to make an excuse that you’re not strong enough to carry heavy things up two flights of stairs. If a stronger person can do it for me, then that’s definitely preferable!

I started off the year with a short week long holiday in Sydney. That holiday helped me to decide the next step I wanted to take in my life – a move to new horizons. I got a new job in Sydney which meant moving cities and finding a new apartment. I also got Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy. Comparing kitten Darcy to grown Darcy is really quite amazing – you forget how small he was to begin with!

2011 was a year of focusing on myself, my needs, and what’s best for me. I got rid of a toxic drain in my life, and upgraded to a newer, shinier, more in tune model. I tried to look after myself a bit better. I started with beauty treatments, and then started working on my fitness.

I tried to collect some new experiences a bit too. I went to Mildura in country Victoria for a weekend, and then drove out to Gippsland (country Victoria again) for a night at a B&B. I spent a day in the Hunter Valley when I got to Sydney. I jumped out of a plane, got a new tattoo and went skiing. I reminded myself that travel is what makes me happy, and as a result, went to America (with ensuing controversy) and booked tickets for Beijing.

Looking back at all that…I had an absolutely massive year!

Graduate successfully from my Masters with a High/Distinction average: I didn’t graduate from my Masters. Instead, I did the complete opposite of successfully graduate, and instead I deferred my last semester of study. I did get a Distinction for the first semester of study though. I start study again first semester of this year – starting late February through to mid June. I’m a bit worried about it actually – I will have been away from study for the past six months and I hope that my motivation hasn’t suffered as a result.

Take the next step in my career to a 10% increase in salary and a step up in position title: I didn’t get a discernible increase in salary nor a step up in position title. What I did do was find a new job in Sydney that is probably more focused and relevant to what I want to do in the long-term, as opposed to the work I had been doing previously. I’m doing work that involves a degree of higher level thinking – of strategy, analytics and planning. It’s a step up from the purely administrative, logistic and “doing” work that I have previously done, and offers more opportunity to broaden my skills for appeal to future employers.

At this point I don’t know how long I will stay with the role. It’s becoming clear that it’s not enough money to live comfortably on for the type of lifestyle that I am accustomed to. It is also clear that while there may potentially be long-term scope for growth in the role, it’s not something that would happen in the next two years, nor something that could allow for any short-term substantive growth in income. Yet there are clear pros to the role – I enjoy the work, my colleagues and the organisation. And if things go according to plan, staying at this organisation would make sense as they are very family-friendly and offer great maternity leave and “back to work” options. But I can make more money elsewhere for similar work within a similar not for profit environment. At this stage…I don’t know what I’ll do. I imagine I’ll see through a twelve month cycle however, and make a decision towards September of this year.

Pay $5000AUD off my mortgage, additional to the regular fortnightly payments: I actually paid an extra $18K onto my mortgage in 2011. However, I’m currently chewing up any benefits I earned by not paying my ongoing mortgage amounts (in agreement with the bank) as I work through my current money problems. My additional payments allow me to stop paying my mortgage until September. I hope to get back on track by March though (by which time, I would have chewed up $10K of my additional payments), and to start paying my mortgage again at that point. I’m still stressed about money, but I’m hopeful that things will turn around soon.

Finally fully furnish and decorate my apartment, with photographic evidence: Well, technically yes, I did this. I did fully furnished my apartment in Melbourne and showed off some of the key features of: my bedroom, living room and kitchen. But then I moved out of my apartment in August and in with my parents who pretty much claimed all my furniture to replace their old furniture. Moving up to Sydney in September, I had nothing but my personal clothing and kitchenware. I took no furniture or whitegoods with me.

When I finally moved into my own apartment, I’ve had to essentially start this resolution again and furnish an apartment from scratch. I think I may have just made it – I picked up some pieces on Friday. However while I’ve got most of the furniture, I still lack the personal touches that make it a home…and I’m struggling with ideas of how to make it feel like home when it’s a rental property where I can’t hang pictures on the wall, repaint, or do anything else that alters the physical state of the property.

As for resolutions for 2012?

I recently spent some time setting objectives for the next six months at work. Each objective had one guiding principle, they had to be SMART objectives: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. Using the same concept, I wanted to look at my personal goals for the next twelve months.

1. Graduate successfully from my Masters with a High/Distinction average (repeat!).
2. Get down to Melbourne at least twice this year to visit friends and family.
3. Get back on track financially with a strong $5K in savings by the end of the year.
4. Go overseas twice.

The first three are pretty self explanatory. I need to finally finish this Masters…no more delays! I’m also feeling a bit homesick. Having my brother here for a week helped, but really, I just miss home and my mum’s cooking. Even though I’ve been eating my way around Sydney trying out new places, I’m yet to find anywhere with food as amazing as my mum’s cooking. I’m also not used to being in this kind of a financial situation – I’ve always been the responsible one, and I want to be again.

As for going overseas twice, I already have that super cheap trip to China planned, which Kieran has now also booked tickets for. I look forward to showing him around a country I consider my second (and original) home. I’d also like to look at going overseas again towards the end of the year. I’ll have about three weeks of leave accumulated by Christmas, which would be just enough for a whistle fast tour of Argentina, Chile and Peru…or India and Sri Lanka…or Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia…or anywhere really! I know now what experiences make me happy and I want to do it all especially now that I’m with someone who is similarly inclined.

I should probably make a resolution about losing weight and/or doing more exercise, but we all know that kind of resolution never works. ;)

And just for your enjoyment – the fireworks that I got to watch last night.

In previous years I might have written the entry in advance and set it to autopublish…but somehow despite the fact that I’ve been away from work for the past week, I’ve had absolutely no time to myself. My brother left Sydney on Thursday after a week where we spent every single day out doing touristy activities. I’ve had an incredibly busy Christmas with Kieran’s family. I’ve had two friends from Melbourne visit me in Sydney in the past week. I’ve been picking up furniture purchased second-hand and finally starting to put my new place together. My life here is coming together.

I looked over my resolutions for 2011, and actually realised that I failed them all. I’ll explain more later (when I’ve actually got time to write more about 2011/2012), but although I technically failed them, I don’t feel like a failure. A contributing reason may be the fact that I’m continually realising that I now live in one of the most stunning cities in the world – something I didn’t envision this time last year.

Have a fantastic New Year’s Eve everyone – and I hope 2012 brings you light, love and laughter!

I got these beautiful earrings as my Secret Santa present. How gorgeous are they? Whoever got me clearly knew my penchant for earrings over other pieces of jewellery.

You’ll all be proud of me as well – there was no vomit. There was actually a bet going around the organisation as to who would win the yellow jersey that night, with the prize going to the drunkest person. I kid you not, everyone put their bets on me to win. I actually felt a little indignant about it, so made a point of reining myself in – I got my drink on until 11pm, then drank nothing but water until I left at 1am. Responsible drinking, yeah! The yellow jersey ended up going to a forty-something mother of three children who is normally incredibly staid in the office, but is absolutely hilarious when she’s on the piss.

I don’t normally celebrate Christmas, but I’m getting really excited about it this year. I’ve paid for my brother to fly up to Sydney for a week over Christmas so that I don’t have to be alone…but most importantly? His Melbourne to Sydney flight includes freight for one animal. That animal is Darcy. I’m going to finally have my cat with me now that I’ve got my own place!

1. My financial situation is a little less dire. They’ve finally found a tenant for my apartment (at $80 a week less than what they originally said I would get), but I’m still three months down on rental income ($6000). I’ve negotiated a payment plan with the tax office so I can pay my tax bill, I don’t have to pay other bills until January, and I have enough for a deposit on a rental in Sydney. Things are tight, but I’m not as stressed.
2. I have not yet found a rental in Sydney. I have another round of inspections this weekend though, so fingers crossed. I have three more weeks available to me in my current temporary accommodation (I can leave earlier if I find somewhere), so that’s my deadline for finding somewhere.
3. His immediate family love me. I’m meeting the extended family this weekend at a birthday gathering, and I’m relatively confident they’ll love me too.
4. I’m currently living with two men in my temporary accommodation, though not the two in this entry. I’m not sure what happened with those two actually – we lost contact after I went away for a month, so I assume they’ve found somewhere else to live? Anyway, living with two men who’ve never been introduced to cleaning products. Huzzah.
5. I’ve re-enrolled in my postgrad degree for next semester. It’s actually been quite nice having a few months off study, considering how manic I’ve been with travelling, moving, and settling into a new city, and also considering that I’ve been in continuous education since I was four. I just hope I can get back into study mode next year.
6. I ended up buying an actual GPS. I don’t know whether it’s helped or hindered my driving around Sydney though. The problem with Sydney’s highways is that you might be travelling on one, then each of the four lanes will go off into a different highway (all unmarked with the actual highway name, just marked with destination), and all the GPS will tell you is “Continue on Warringah Highway”, and not clarify which one it is. There have been times when I’ve been in the wrong lane and ended up having to drive across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (bye bye $5 toll charge!) when that’s the last thing I want to do.

As for things that have been happening since I’ve returned to Sydney:

1. I turned 25. I still can’t really believe that I’m a quarter of a century old. I was marginally concerned about how I would spend my birthday considering I’m away from family and most of my friends who are in Melbourne, but I ended up having a great weekend.

   I went out for dinner on Friday night at this amazing Northern Thai place (no pad thai here!) with Kieran, then went out clubbing with a friend who came to Sydney for my birthday, as well as Kieran and some of his friends. The club was doing a nineties night…it was fantastic to dance and sing along to Britney, the Backstreet Boys, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Salt n Pepa, etc. Then on the Saturday, I went to Taronga Zoo with Kieran, and got to see the three new Sumatran tiger cubs who are only about two or three months old…so adorable! I spent Saturday night in with Tracey, Xuan and my Melbourne friend, and we watched girly movies, painted our nails and ate bacon. Sunday was a bludgey recovery day, but I went out for dinner again.

2. I went to my first wedding. Can you believe I’d never been to a wedding before now? It’s largely because all my extended family obviously live overseas so I never had occasion to go to a cousin’s wedding. All my parents family friends have kids who are younger than me so they weren’t getting married. And none of my friends seem to be the marrying type! Anyway, Kieran’s mate from university got married, and I went as his date. It was quite a simple and casual wedding – a watered down Catholic ceremony in a small country church (the bride was Catholic), followed by a picnic/reception in a mountainous national park, and then drinks down at the local pub. Luckily the weather was absolutely beautiful for it as it was pretty much all outside!

   It got me thinking about how I want my wedding – and I think my one big takeaway was that I don’t want a church wedding. The couple tried to be very inclusive of all faiths in their service, but I felt hypocritical being in a church for a service when I don’t believe in religion. I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable getting married in a church, but by the same token, wouldn’t feel comfortable getting married on the beach which seems to be the default second option for most Australians. I’d be more inclined to hire out a beautiful scenic winery, or I love the idea of holding a reception somewhere like the State Library of Victoria. All something to think about.

3. Work has been good. I’ve been doing a lot of work online and with some external publications, which has been very interesting. My colleagues are (largely) fun – we’re having a big “girl’s night out” tonight which should be interesting. I’ve been told (warned?) that these nights tend to get pretty messy…I’m interested to see what people are like away from the office! You know how people have work personas and out of office personas? It’ll be interesting.
4. My friends haven’t abandoned me. As I mentioned earlier, a friend came up from Melbourne for my birthday weekend which was amazing. I’ve got another friend coming to Sydney next week so we’ll catch up, and yet another friend coming next weekend for work. Then a group of my girl friends from high school are talking about road tripping up to Sydney to see me between Christmas and New Years – AND my parents plan on sending my brother up to visit me in that time too. I was originally apprehensive of moving to a new city and leaving my support network behind, but that really hasn’t been the case – they’ve just followed me for random visits.

   It’s as my manager at work said actually – when you move to a new city, you become a destination for friends and family. They may not have originally thought of visiting that city before, but once you’re there, they’ll come and visit you and you won’t be alone. I’m thankful for that.

5. …and I already covered off on the housing situation.

Finally, sarcastic travel posts aside, I do actually have some serious “This is what I did/bought in America” posts planned with much less sarcasm. Not a dearth thereof, just less. Somehow, I don’t think they’ll be quite as popular.

This photo has not been retouched for publication.

1. Spent time up at the Hunter Valley (wine region!)
2. Went shopping with Tracey
3. Eaten out so much that I’ve been in a constant state of bloat
4. Started work (third day today!)

The weirdest thing about my week in Sydney so far is that I haven’t yet met my housemate. Granted, I wasn’t at home for two nights running over the weekend, but she hasn’t been at home at all. If I hadn’t spoken to her over the phone, I would doubt that she actually exists. The apartment itself is quite nice and modern, though the toaster has a habit of burning toast even on the lowest setting. This is a travesty for someone whose main food group is toast.

I’m missing Mr Darcy like crazy, and as much as I hate to admit it, kind of miss my parents too. This is probably because the Mid-Autumn Festival was on Monday, and instead of sitting down with family for a feast and mooncake, I sat down in front of the TV with a bowl of instant pasta and ‘Hanging With Friends’ (Add me if you play! Jingwencom is my username). I don’t feel the lack of my parents normally, but to miss a festival day seems inherently wrong.

Also, I am seeing someone.

Now that my departure date is so close, I can actually admit to a certain amount of apprehension. I’m a little bit scared. While I’ll happily tout my independence over the past few years (and most people I know will attest to that), it’s a lot easier to claim independence when you know that you always have a backup option and a support network. It’s very easy to live alone and pay a mortgage if you know you can always move back home to your parents. And even though I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never had the type of friendship where people drop by uninvited, I know enough people in Melbourne that I can call someone for a quick and immediate catch-up if I’m ever feeling desperately lonely.

I don’t have that in Sydney. I know a few people, but I certainly don’t expect that my moving there will result in them giving up their already full social lives just to spend time with me. I need to meet people and make friends outside of my existing network – something that is extremely difficult for most grown adults to do. Similarly, I’m afraid that without my parents or a family-based network nearby, that I won’t have support when I need it most. If I’m in a car accident, who’s going to visit me in hospital and feed Darcy? If I get a raise/promotion at work, who’s going to celebrate with me? Where will I go for a home-cooked dinner with the kind of bond that only family can create?

It’s simultaneously exciting and terrifying to be jumping into the unknown and giving up the support I’ve always had.