Holding my breath

I made this black sesame pudding with glutinous rice balls for a mid-night-ish snack tonight. Mom makes this at home on occasion and after having it at a friend's house a few weeks ago (her mom made it for us), I had to give it a go myself. It turned out pretty good!

I miss cooking/baking late at night, something I'd often do back home, usually baking a batch of muffins or cookies for the week or even for the freezer, but I don't really do here now that I live with other people, but I tally that simply to adapting. But still, there's something peaceful and calming about cooking at night, with nothing pressing on time and really, not much else to do or places to be.

Visited three Asian supermarkets before I was able to procure all the ingredients.

I had an important second-round interview yesterday that I am eagerly awaiting the verdict from. Eager because a potential offer means options. I know I have options now too, but a job offer is kind of a big deal in terms of location and tactics. And no job offer (for now) is also a big deal too, because that means I'll move on to do other things.

I know I'm in a good position though because whatever the verdict, I will do something of value and I will be with people I love :) The hard thing is going to be that also whatever the verdict, and whatever I do, while I'm with some people I love, I'll be missing others. But thus is life.

Excited/Nervous. And grateful :)

Today marks two months of unemployment

Two months of unemployment is also the longest that I have not worked since getting my first job after university. So what have I been up to? Here's a sampling:

Job searching:
Since August I have applied to over 69 jobs, have had nine first interviews and three second interviews. I've learned about different industries, companies, roles, how to do case studies, structured finance, research, and that recruiters in particular favour previous experience to lead to your next experience. Still hopeful that I'll find something gainful, either here or at home.

Bushwalking:
After receiving disappointing and not exactly constructive feedback after a second interview, I felt a very crushed and decided to escape for a day. That weekend I woke up before sunrise and hopped onto a train, travelling about 111 km south of Sydney CBD, more than 2.5 hours by train, arriving in Minnamurra where I began my coastal walk to Kiama, just about 10 km away.

I found it disappointing that the walk was not along the beach for the full 10 km, as I had imagined, but rather involved some beach, some bush and a lot of walking along the road. In any case, I got some good photos and had some good views.

 

The Blowhole: a hole in the rocks that water shoots up out of when the tide comes in. Lots of tourists standing around waiting for the water spout, but it didn't happen at this time, so I continued onward to find another blowhole called Little Blowhole, a few kilometers away.

I believe this is at Little Blowhole, which is smaller than the big one but did have some action: a couple gushes of water that squirted up about....four feet high. Not overly impressive.

 I was at Little Blowhole feeling sweaty, sticky, on the fringe of a sunburn and still down. What do you do when you lose confidence in yourself? Watching the unimpressive yet apparent highlights of the area, I felt disappointed. I was away from home, I quit my job at home and rented out my condo, missing my family/friends at home and missing my nephew growing up. And I hot/sweaty/sticky, staring at a hole in a rock, watching water squirt up to not even my own height.

I got an ice cream and caught the train back to Sydney to meet my friend Carmen for dinner.

Round-about on the main street in Kiama.

I got my confidence back a few days later. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, just some encouragement from friends, some rationalization, and a reminder to myself that people learn and I can learn. Even deconstructive feedback can be broken down and you can then extract the constructive pieces out of the mess and build upwards from there. Yay :)

Dragonboating:
Possibly my favourite, or at least one of my favourite things to do here in Sydney.

The second sanctioned regatta was at Manly Dam. It was quite rainy and cold and I found myself shivering quite often. In Australia!! It was forecasted to rain so I packed pretty light, freezing during marshaling and quickly changing back into warm clothes after each race. This was the third regatta (out of five) that I have attended that has been rainy and cold. But yeah, I was pretty proud of my packing strategy. I think I packed the lightest out of everyone! Though I seem to withstand cold better than the others, which isn't saying much since I'm not the best in the cold in Calgary.

The Team. We have a new tent! That's my in the blue windbreaker/waterproof jacket. I couldn't be bothered to bring my team hoodie since I was trying to pack light for the day, should stuff get wet, cuz I greatly dislike dealing with wet stuff.



ACCA Women. That's me in the second row, looking down.

Boating
Being unemployed means that I have available time to do fun things during times when other people are working. And thankfully, my Aussie dad had some free time too, so we went on a bushwalking/boating trip the other day.



Start: Bobbin Head Wharf, kinda down in the left hand corner of this map. We used the engine up past that 'A' marker, and put up the sails to sail down to Pittwater

Bobbin Head Wharf

Dingy! For shore-adventures, for those who aren't strong swimmers (me hehe) as well as for keeping stuff dry when going to shore.

Stop #1: Fisherman's Beach

Stop #2: Refuge Beach. Check out that awesome rock!

Waterfall at Refuge Beach. It was running nice and strong since it's been so rainy lately. We were lucky to have a hot and sunny day after all the rain.

The water from the waterfall runs down the sand and into the ocean.

We climbed up to the top of the waterfall.

At the top of the waterfall there were these holes in the hakwsbury sandstone that the water flowed into and overflowed out of down the waterfall.

Some of the holes are deep enough to go into and thankfully, shallow enough that I could touch the bottom! Would be so scary to go in and get lost in the rock, although I've been told that the holes are just holes and don't really make paths elsewhere, but yeah, not something I care to test!

That's the boat in the background, with the high mast.

Refuge Beach is not just a pretty spot, but was used in WWII by Special Unit Z, a joint allied special forces unit formed during WWII to operate behind Japanese lines in SE Asia. Z cammandos sailed from this bay to attack enemy shipping in Singapore harbour on 26 Sep 1943 and was considered to be the most daring and successful seaborne raid in military history.

Stop #3: The Basin. I'd been to this spot before, during my first boating adventure in Sydney. I like it cuz there's some nice bushwalking, wallabies and goannas, as well as a netted off area where one can swim and not worry about shark attacks.

 

That's me in the water. It gets deep suddenly where I am.

Water on sand.

So yeah, it hasn't been a bad couple of months. Had some rough patches and still riding the emotional roller coaster, but when I remind myself that I'm here to collect experience and to grow, I start to feel okay.