Tag Archives: reflections

Pause. Breathe. Reflect

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It has been a long hot summer in Sydney and we have barely hit the halfway mark. As much as I love sunshine, fresh air and the great outdoors, I also despise heat. For anyone sitting in colder climes reading this, you are probably ready to throw darts at me or, worse still, just stop reading. Moving on.

I am lucky enough to live within a short drive of a beautiful beach in Sydney and as the heatwave continued to drive us out of our minds, I decide to head to the beach. Normally, my beach bag consists of sunscreen, beach towel, hat, and whatever book I am reading. As I was only planning on spending a couple of hours there, mainly to take my first dip into the ocean to kick off 2017, I decide to leave my book (currently catching up on Winston Graham’s Poldark series) at home.

20170113_125545With many locals still on their summer break, the beach was busier than usual for a weekday. After dumping my beach gear on my small patch of paradise, I jumped straight into the ocean. The water temperature was perfect. I look up into the clear blue sky with barely a whisp of a cloud that resembles a very long, fluffy piece of fairy floss. I look out to the ocean to find a few small sailboats taking advantage of the wind conditions.

All around me are people of all ages – swimming, sunbathing (me being concerned they may not have enough sunscreen on their backs!), sleeping, chatting, playing. I am not a particularly good swimmer – I just enjoy being in the water – so when the waves start to become a little big for me to manage, I decide to swim back to shore. Continue reading →

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A Life Thirty Years In the Making, And May There Be Many Many More

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I love meeting new people whenever I travel. As soon as I open my mouth, they recognise an “interesting” accent and the question inevitably follows: “Where do you come from?” I refrain from breaking out my Men At Work impression and I reply “I come from Australia.”  That is the answer I have been giving for the past thirty years. Yes, it hardly seems real that it has already been thirty years since my parents packed up the family and moved us halfway across the world from Hong Kong to a city in a country we had never been to.

 

I never fully grasped the enormity of such a move back in 1982. At the time, I knew nothing about Australia – not even about the koalas and kangaroos that people ask me about nowadays when I travel abroad.  The only people I knew who had even been to Australia were friends of my parents who had come here on a family holiday.  I remember going to their house for a slide night but taking very little interest in what was on screen.

 

The only thing I remember thinking was that they spoke English in Australia.  Having attended an English private school since kindergarten, I was not afraid of the language barrier, though if anyone had warned me about the accent, things might have been a little different!  If only I had read Nino Culotta’s They’re A Weird Mob back then, I may have had a better understanding of the Australian slang!

 

The prospect of leaving behind all my friends and my grandparents, who I was extremely close to, never truly hit me until we were at the airport on August 15th, 1982, when I saw my grandfather cry for the first time in my life as we bade our farewells at the departure gate.  Having always been an extremely sensitive and sentimental child, the sight of my grandparents and my parents in tears was the first sign that my life was about to change in a major way.

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The Highlights of My 2011

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2011 has been a bittersweet year for me.  As I struggled to look for work, I was suddenly faced with something I had never had this much of before: time!  Time to do many things I had been putting off doing but was always too busy to do before.  Although the opportunities of the “paid” variety were lacking, I was also given opportunities to do other things that just may one day lead to a more fulfilling life.

And so, as another year draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on some of the things and events that have impacted me in whatever capacity.  Many have been happy but some, not so much.  So here we go…

Retiring Swans Co-captain Craig Bolton takes a lap of honour around the SCG

Footy Season

The year in AFL has been a mixed one.  My team, the Sydney Swans, spent most of their home games in Sydney playing in wet conditions, which means I spent a lot of time trying to stay dry in the stands.  With the well-respected Paul Roos now retired after a very successful 8 years in the senior coach’s position, the reigns were handed down to his former assistant, John “Horse” Longmire.  It had been six years since the Swans won a Premiership and with many of its Premiership players retired or retiring, many critics did not give the youngsters on the 2011 playlist much chance to make the finals series.  As usual, the Swans showed their “Bloods” spirit and proved the naysayers wrong and we made it as far as the second week of the finals, finishing sixth on the ladder.  Not a bad effort at all.  Go Swans!

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Forty Pearls of Wisdom And Assorted Observations

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In four weeks’ time, I will be celebrating my birthday, and there’s nothing like being reminded that you’re another year older to make you reflect on the little things in life.

Since I am not one to be backwards in coming forwards, so to speak, I thought I’d share with you some of my little “pearls of wisdom”, if you will.  You may not agree with them but that’s OK. I’ve learnt to accept that I can never please everyone 🙂

These are a mish-mash of things that came to mind but are in no particular order, and by no means an exhaustive list.  However, you can probably guess why I have chosen to list forty 🙂

So here goes nothing!

  1. My mother may not always be right, but she always has my interest at heart.
  2. Family always comes first and will always be.
  3. You can choose your friends but not your family, so it’s best to accept them as they are.
  4. Words are mightier than the sword, so choose yours wisely.  The saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is rubbish.
  5. There will always be idiots doing and saying idiotic things. It’s better to ignore them and walk away. Don’t let them ruin your day.
  6. Choose your battles carefully. Some are just not worth the effort.
  7. Look at the big picture but don’t ignore the details
  8. Common sense is not common, otherwise there would be no such thing as planking or the Darwin Awards
  9. It’s not nice to call someone stupid, no matter how much you want to. People do stupid things. There’s a difference.
  10. I believe in God. Having Faith helps get me through the days – good and bad. Continue reading →

Happy Bloggerversary!

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Twelve months ago this week, I dared to annoy and bore my friends and family by starting a blog and then making them read it.  It all began because I had always wanted to write and, quite frankly, I was not about to be outdone by my then-seven-year-old nephew who had started his own blog, Kids’ Movie Guide.  This is now my 44th post on this site, not counting the two travelogues I wrote for my photo blog Thursday Has A View which I created in March 2011.

It has been a long time since I read my earlier posts but when I look back at the titles of the earliest writings, there is no doubt they were all about how I could put a funny and positive spin on my work life which was pretty much making me miserable.  A friend of mine said she liked that my posts were always so positive.  The reality was that by writing, I was forcing myself to focus on the positives rather than the negative things that were motivating me to vent in public.

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