Taste

I haven't had meat (pork, beef, chicken...) for a year and i now do not yearn for the taste of meat any more. I can't imagine any dish with meat that can arouse my appetizer. 

I know that sugary stuffs and dairy products are not great for my health. But the taste of them seems to be so pleasant that i am sometimes stuffed myself with cakes, ice-cream and cheese... Especially when i feel a little down, alone and lazy. It is always so easy to go to the nearby super market and bring home loads of these stuffs. 

To avoid sweet, oily and unhealthy food in general, it should be a process of acknowledging the harmful effects of them, then refrain from eating them long enough for the craving to disappear. But the most important thing is that there must be a substitute for such thing. It is not wise to stop eating sugar and starve oneself. 

Sweet: Fruits

Cakes and Croissant: ...? Vegan bake, must learn. 

Seafood: ... to be continued

Eggs: ... to be continued :)

Am i too impressionable?

Now, i am at Wellington library. I think it would be great if i can get a job here, be a librarian, working everyday with books and readers. I can live in a bubble of human's achievements and creativity throughout history. I would love to walk around in the middle of book shelves, put the books to the shelves and arrange them...

Yesterday, i was at the noodle house. I was imagine it would be great to make some good food and serve people as well. I could be someone who made great Vietnamese vegetarian food and make a living in Wellington. Yes, everybody loved food and it's also a good and genuine way to earn money...

The other day, i was in a skin clinic and it was such a nice experience. We had a good chat with a very friendly and warm woman, who was giving us a lots of great advice on skin products. Then i was thinking, well, I would love to learn about herbal medicine, its effect on health and stuffs and do the same job as that girl. I would enjoy it so much. It was such a pleasant and beautiful occupation a person could have.

One time, i looked at the leaflets of English language centers or free English courses to people in Wellington. Then i suddenly thought i should be an English teacher. There are so many people that need to learn English in Wellington, especially immigrants from foreign countries who are suffering from under minimum wage jobs due to their lack of English competency. Yes, i had my degree in English, i could be an English teacher...

Every time i walked pass Ogilvy office on Tory street, an international advertising agency that one friend of mine used to work for in Vietnam. My friend is a creative writer and a good person. I guess i should work in advertising and marketing as well using my writing ability, which is not too bad, i think. Then the moment i passed that office, one last thought lingered in my mind was how to start a career in advertising. Maybe i should ask that friend of mine...

I happened to know one Vietnamese woman. She works as a chef at a Vietnamese restaurant. She asked me to help her filling a register form at a health clinic. While waiting for her at that clinic, i was thinking that I should find a job in translating in Wellington. Maybe being a Vietnamese-English translator and interpreter can be good for me. But is there a real demand for me to make a living out of this? Well...

I am often walking alone. I feel reluctant to go to any cafe and bar by myself. Then i think, maybe if i work in any cafe or bar, i can get rid of such feeling. I am imaging myself standing behind those bars, talking to customers and taking orders. Then i would make coffee or a drink for them... It looks neat in my head. I wish i could get a chance to work in a cafe or bar some day...

 Several hours ago, i had an interview for housekeeping job. I didn't go well and I would not work in housekeeping after hearing him saying how pressured and time racing it could be working there. I thought i should change myself into an extroverted and outgoing, some kind of people person to work at front office. I think i should try myself at sales job or any kind of receptionist position... Yes, i think i can do better than cleaning. Or to tell the truth, i am not good at cleaning either. I guess i should find something i can be good at... yeah, whatever...

Richard Dawkins will come to Wellington on March. Yes, i did want to become a revolutionist-atheist like him, or a scientist in general. Like Richard Feynman or Albert Einstein, doing something serious. Not the social sciences or management stuffs. Which subjects i should go into? Maybe something with trees in a garden? (Huh?) I forget all the basics in science subjects from high school. How can i begin anything, becoming a scientist and sustain myself? LOL

Seeing a lot of weird movies, some about arts. I did have a slight idea of being a film maker or artist or writer. Anything creative. That sounds pretty cool, always keep in touch with the freshest and most creative core inside myself. Did i ever do anything creative in my life? I did have a notebook full of my doodling of monsters in pencil. I did keep a diary full of hatred towards my parents in my teenager period. I did write heaps of letters to my crushes. It was pretty good though, one guy thought my writing was like Murakami's. Anyway, it was a long time ago. I haven't done anything creative these days.

I pretty much want to do everything, especially cool things. How childish i am. I know, i just need to start doing one thing, just one thing. That is to get a job in Wellington. So that i can pay for my rent and food. But what should i do? ...

I am such a joke.

27 year old human with a mind of a 12 year old confused girl. :) Yay, so i am young at heart then.

Jobs I've done. Blueberry picking.

Blueberry picking:

This was my first job ever, my first payslip, my first time that i ever earned something. I was in Hastings at the time, wwoofing in a salad farm. At that place I came to wwoof with the hope to earn some extra money for my previous host said that that man would hire some wwoofers to work extra hours and pay them. However, i did not get that paid position. He had enough people to work for him then. I started to try to find work in Hastings, looking at seasonal jobs website. I saw an ad about blueberry picking so I went to that place. It was quite far from where i stayed but i walked there, feeling adventurously excited. When i walked to town trying to figure my way to that place. I met a Chilean couple and talked to them about the picking job i knew about. They were looking for job too so we both went in their car heading to our potential workplace. It's funny how they were telling me in a very intimidating way that I had to pay if the police called and saw me not wearing the seat belt. Maybe they had some bad experience with someone on the back seats...?! Well, i wore my seat belt, of course. We found the place, came in and fill the form. Then we worked right away. When i walked into that blueberry farm, i saw so many pickers, Asian, Pacific Islanders, other "white" people as well... There was one supervisor showing us what to do. I was so overwhelmed and felt quite trapped standing inside a giant net cage... I honestly did not get what i had to do, where to pick blueberry, what to do after i pick them, etc... Totally clueless about the procedure. The couple started to work very fast. They seemed to know what's going on and what to do. They kept moving from one rows to another. I lost them very fast and just randomly picked blueberry from some random row that i saw no people there. Then i met Stewart, a middle-age man from Scotland who later gave me rides to the blueberry farm sice the Chilean couple could not give me a ride no more and they actually estranged me right after that first day. We met again once more time but they didn't talk to me. I didn't bother much thinking about them but Stewart said they seemed rude for not talking to me or asking about how i came to work or anything... (I were surprised how i didn't feel anything like he said)...

I stopped wwoofing and looked for a room in town to stay. I spent one night at a backpacker before i found a room. The backpacker was one of the worst place ever. It kinda helped me really appreciate any other decent and slightly nice ones I stayed on the road later. The landlady i stayed with was having something wrong with her legs. She could not walk properly around the house, always had to lean on something. But she was working part-time as a caretaker for someone even needed more help than her, which was such an admirable thing to me.

Back to my blueberry picking, i started to work there from morning till late evening every day. We all got a trailer and 6 or 8 craters. In each crater, there were boxes. We were all wearing a "necklace" with a box as the pendant so that we could put the blueberry there while picking. We had to follow instructions of supervisors on where to pick. There were numbers on the area, on the poles of every row. We had to move from place to place. It was such a massive blueberry farm and it took quite long to walk around, easy to get lost. Sometimes, i just followed people, not knowing exactly what was being said at all. I normally worked with Steward, each on one side of the blueberry row. We had small talks during work and ate lunch together. It was quite nice to know someone rather than worked alone or with someone you didn't know for there would be some problem if you picked too much and "invaded" blueberries on their side...

It was tiring. A row was long. Some rows are so high, some so low, some so bushy, some so dying... My back was hurt. My head was hurt too if it was a sunny day and i didn't work under some bushy rows. Sometimes, the ground was soggy so it's hard to move the trailer along. It was not a fun job for me, i guess. I didn't feel like to eat blueberries at all for i was busy picking, keeping moving and race with time. I heard lots of singing from other people. They worked with the whole family i believe. Anyway, compared to others, my harvesting was poor. I didn't know why. My hands too small, my speed too slow, my strategy too poor, my time-off too long... Anyway, i was quite happy with what i did.

There was only one time that a girl, who was a supervisor asked me and Stewart to go back a long distance to pick again for she said we missed many blueberries. I felt alright, but then Stewart told me she did that because she wanted more blueberry for her relatives from the other end of the row to pick. That was the last row we had for that day.

That job made me felt like being a robot. We showed our card, which had a number when we came and left the place, no face on it. We were like little ants working hard to collect blueberries. People were weighing our blueberries and recorded how many kilos we made and paid accordingly. I guess many people made heaps of money from that job, not for me. Many people had fun singing, talking, playing on the farm as well but I was busy focusing on my blueberry just to pick a very small amount of blueberry. I just needed to be bigger in size i guess.

I worked there for 2 weeks then i left for another job in the South. If i stayed, my ability would get better i suppose. That job gave me many raw feelings. Feeling of being a laborer for the first time in my life. Feeling of being a tiny faceless part of a giant farm. Feeling of being exhausted, extremely thirsty and hungry but having nothing with me to quench that thirst or hunger but i had to keep going to finish that row...

I bet if i ever worked as a blueberry picker again, i would eat a lot more of blueberries. :)

The urge to be cool

I am lucky to know quite a few "cool" people, many of them i have known from schools and some others i met in New Zealand. What is it about them that always fascinates me and inspires me so much?

1. They are not conventional. They are not the smartest, the prettiest or ablest but they are just so interesting and charming in their own way. The sparkling shine of them comes from their bubbling personality, self assurance and down-to-earth attitude about life and themselves. They are mentally brave and not easily intimidated. Well, i must say they are so approachable and tangible. When i am with them, it is like i can touch all their thorns and roughness but it is so endearing about all that. 

2. They make arts. They all play music, do crafting, drawing, photographing, cooking or origami... These cool friends always have some cool things to do with their time. They never get bored, they never feel lonely. They have a fun cool intact world of their own.

3. They are open-minded, childlike, carefree and expressive. I love to be with them because it feels so fresh when listening to their feelings, their unique views about what is going on in the world. 

For me, I care too much about what others think, which prevent me from expressing myself. I am too self-conscious about what i think and say. The self-criticism voice is too loud for me to have any fun. And i guess, the urge to be cool kinda ruins things for me. I do not need to be cool and make people like me to feel good about myself. Just relax and do not judge myself too much i guess. There are better things to do than just focus on my little self.

Express yourself :)

For many long-winded reasons, now i am in New Zealand. By having conversation with people from many different countries in the world, i try to pinpoint the shortcomings in my English capacity. My English can help me get by with reading, watching movies (would be perfect with subtitles) and expressing myself in simple daily life situation. However, i feel lost so many times involving something deeper or more technical. 

It is not just about the language, it is the cultural and educational background that are so different between me and another that makes it hard for me to be a part of their conversations. It's also about the way people react to things or the way they show their exclamation. People i know from English speaking countries, they seem to be very responsive towards stuffs such as some certain sensational scenes in a movie, a certain kind of music (they start to move their bodies), food (facial express, exclamation)... For me, all those things are new. I often watch movies silently, listen to music quietly, eating without showing much emotion at all. Am I leading my life in a very robotic and stoic way? Or it is just because i am not hanging around with people enough to exchange such motions? 

Well, i think their ways seem a little bit more fun. It covers all the awkward silence and people can get along more easily and less painfully. However, sometimes people don't care much about what you say. I can see sometimes other people often response to others' reponses in a very robotic way. But then, i guess the self-expression for those people are not to get agreement from others but just for their own's sake. I think it's great to express yourself and then people can know you. That's the main point. That's how people build their relationship in life then. From little small things in everyday life. 

About technical thing, i was with a friend and my friend's friends are fixing a bicycle's tube. I was definitely lost not knowing the exact names and stuffs about that one bicycle. Then i asked them about these names but then the conversation started to go in a little bit more detail about bicycle as well so i continued to be clueless somehow. However, i see that not everybody know these things so i do not worry about this much. But i think i definitely need some hobbies, that is what i really need. 

Though my vocabulary works alright but only when i read or write. When speaking, i am struggling to pronounce things properly and to find the appropriate words. I find hard to pronounce the "r" sound and word with multiple consonants such as "scrubs", "graduate", "thrust", "plain"... I guess a little bit practice everyday would help. 

After all, to improve my English , i have to engage in more conversation with people. One thing about me is that i often feel shy and self-conscious. Well, remember, just express yourself. That's how you make friends and stir emotion inside others, it can be positive or negative but at least, people know you exist. :D

The Very Beginning

A friend of mine has a habit of watching Youtube videos in the morning right after he wakes up. This morning, I try the same thing and the topic that interests me is how to write and how to make a writing portfolio. Writing is the thing that i always want to do but keep delaying due to laziness and lack of determination or a sense of emergency. However, at this stage of my life, writing is necessary for my survival. How to begin?
- Find the articles that i like and point out what is good about them and then try to write something that has the same effect.
- Find a topic that i am interested into and learn about them then write about them with my own perspective.?!
- Read heaps to improve my writing skills for English is my second language.
- Think of writing as a way to learn. No pressure at all.
- And there is no audience, but i would love to have someone that find my writing interesting and worth reading. Let's hope! :)