|
| Its amazing that we are moving slowly but surely towards the overseas
"typical asian family" stereotype that I thought we would never become.
Who would've thought that when we moved out to the suburbs after
arriving in Australia 20 years ago that this would happen. In 1984, it
was very hard to find another chinese family living out in the
south-eastern suburbs. The ones that were living here we probably
already knew. If we wanted to meet someone, we'd just go into Chinatown
on a Saturday
and most likely we would run into them having yum-cha or doing grocery
shopping. I was one of five kids at my primary school that were
Chinese, my best friends were all Australians. I resented that they
didn't have to go to Chinese school on weekends (not that it did me any
good)
How things have changed, we now live in a nearby suburb that is also
full of asian families. Not that that is a bad thing necessarily, but
the days of being a minority are over. Its not as bad as LA, where if
you see a gwailo in places like Monterey Park, you would have to wonder
if they are lost.  I guess our lifestyle will change, but I
wouldn't have thought we could ever go back to the typical Chinese
lifestyle. We now go to yum-cha in our own suburb on the weekends. My
high school has a much larger proportion of Asian kids from even when I
left there not so long ago (ok, 5+ years now). Today we went looking at
cars and we're on the verge of driving a silvery colour Toyota Corolla,
bought from a Chinese salesperson with all the bargaining done in
Cantonese.
| | |
| Apparently working 80+ hours in a fortnight isn't enough, so tomorrow
I'm off for more quality time with colleagues and my work. "Only" meant
to work 9-4 but I'm thinking more likely 5 or 6. Oh yay...
| | |
| Its good that I got money back from the tax office, to the tune of $1.3k which will in some way offset all the spending that I have done in the last month (airfares, hotel, etc) and the spending that I have committed to in the near future. Reality hits when I realise that I will probably be paying my HECS/PELS debt for at least the next 10 years if I allow it to just go along as it is currently.  The current debt is in the range of $37k with me paying $500ish last year (after the inflation adjustment)  Oh well, its effectively an interest free loan from the government  | | |
|
A 1980s bloke would not be seen dead
buying that stuff 
Oh well, they are interviewing 3 other people and hopefully I will find
out some time next week whether I got it or not. I'm not *that* worried
if I don't get it because I'm not going to be out of a job either way
(Its good to be wanted) 
) The total for all that
is about 3 times what I got back from the tax office... hmm 