Tuesday, April 05, 2016
Day 46:
It has been awhile.
Tons of things happened.
Easter break of 12 days was over in a flash and I'm just 3hrs of classes away from completing week 5 of school. Autumn is kicking in, daylight savings pushed us back an hour so the sun sets at 6:15pm-ish now. What a difference from the first time I was here... remembered snapping a beautiful sunset with a 8:40pm timestamp. Oh how I'm gonna dread winter...
So, Canberra.
The previous post I mentioned that I hope I could make the best out of the trip despite an injured shoulder. Pretty happy to say that it did turn out to be pretty epic! Visited Toast which was the iconic spot of Canberra, of course I'm sad that I could've done much more in my shoulder wasn't injured, but I was pretty happy with some of the jumps I did! It was also great being able to meet Jordan, Koh and Nickolai again, after they visited me back in LCG! Did enough training to make a short Canberra video too, reviving my pretty un-updated Instagram.
Other than training, we also did some epic hikes! First one was Mt. Ainslie, which was pretty much next door from Max's house. It still took us quite some time to get up, but when we finally did, we climbed up this tree with an amazing look-out and smoked a J up there. Perfect. On the way down was quick, and then we skated on a gentle downhill in the open sewage against the cold breeze... one of the most epic skates in my life (probably the only other two occasions that I can remember was the skating for Woodlands Checkpoint to JB and also the skate mission to MacRitchie from Kraken!).
We also did another hike the next day with Axel and Jordan... super impromptu - we just found somewhere greenish on google maps and saw that there was some epic rocks at the very top, so without further ado, we drove there (had my first actual long driving experience!) and started the hikes. Saw Kangaroos and tried to feed them my bread but to no avail... took us about an hour to get to the top. Gorgeous. Regretted not doing the hike earlier and spend more time at the top, as the sun was almost setting by the time we got up and we had to go down before it gets too dark. Had some amazing shots nonetheless!
So that was two eventful days which I was really happy about, and this was my first trip out since living in Melbourne, and I did everything I wanted to do when I moved here - hiking, camping, driving, training at all the different spots. However, I miss the comfort of my home already and I couldn't be more eager to head back. Verena introduced me this page on Facebook about ride-sharing. How perfect was it to see someone asking if there's anyone who's interested in sharing the ride from Canberra to Melbourne on Thursday? Exactly the day I want to head back. So of course I was up for it, and was really happy that my offer for $20 was enough. Budget travels! Spent a total of $43 for the 4 days in Canberra - free ride there, free accommodation, supermarket food, $20 otw back!
The highlight of the trip however, was this crazy incident that happened on the way back, on the highway. The person I'm sharing the ride with was a Chinese girl, also an international student (who had the money to buy a $6k car...). So we were two hours in the drive and I was pretty tired so I caught a snooze. Not long after waking up from my siesta, I was a little confused to why the car was still going dangerously fast (140kmh at a highway where speed cameras were aplenty (speed limit was 110kmh)) and yet the car was still going straight when the curve ahead was getting closer and closer. Before I could shout anything, she suddenly realized she was supposed to turn so she jammed her brakes hard and turn the steering wheel. We spun a full 3 or 4 rounds and all I did was grab tight to the handles and prayed for my life. Honestly had no idea what else I could do to salvage the situation, and in my head, all I can remember is "Holy shit this is what it feels like to be in a car crash??!?!". I had no idea how the hell I survived such an encounter, the car was just missing its hubcap and some minor dents at the front, no injuries both driver and passenger. So lucky that there wasn't any road divider, or more importantly, no cars behind us... Fortune God was definitely on our side.
All I can say is, it wasn't my time to go yet.
I've faced the above a couple of times, the latest was undoubtedly the fall from 3 storeys after doing that Catleap in Busan. And I remembered about DB's near-death accident at the rooftop.
When you're not time to go, it's just won't happen...
Of course I count myself the luckiest person on Earth to still get home after the long 8hrs drive, eating home-cooked meals again. Could've been in the hospital, paying even more bills, etc. etc. I don't even wanna think about it!
OKAY... back to Melbourne lyfe -
Recently, I've been making full use of my Melbourne gym membership and I've made great progression since a while now. Squats are feeling really strong, but deadlifts definitely weakened (grip is shit!!). Shoulder is affecting my ability to do the other upperbody stuff but I think by next week I'll start on my routine. Can't wait to get bigger jumps again :)
Cooking game also improved a fair bit, just yesterday we made our first cheese baked rice. Probably my happiest creation to date. Was supposed to be baking after a bigggg grocery shopping spree last weekend, but just got too caught up with shit so I guess I'll do it this weekend. Really wanna get better in this aspect of life, at least there's something I'm learning that can actually be of worth!
Can't believe the 12 days break was over just like that, and I'm back to school again this week. I'm only really enjoying the compositing for visual effects class because I get to experiment tons with Photoshop, which I'm honestly enjoying quite a bit. However, I'm still not too fond of the other classes and everytime I listen to the people talking about film, the questions of doubt keep filling up my head. Do I really want a career in film? Can I deal with set life? If not, what do I really want to do with film?
Then I keep thinking how much money I'm spending into this Uni and rent here, feeling like it's the most reckless decision I've made it my life.
Yeah, no doubt. Super reckless indeed.
Then again, I'm here now, so I have to make the best out of it. But how do I do so, if my heart's not in it? Sigh. So much for 'Uni experience'.
Day 46. And I'm still unemployed. I hate complaining. But honestly I haven't felt so lousy about my life since the move here. Feeling out of place. Goalless. Stagnant. Broke.
Just paid the rent for the second month. Life's a struggle.
Admittedly, I haven't been the most productive since I got here.
Need to re-evaluate my life.
Time to make things work.