Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Day 216:
2016 hasn't been a really good year for me.
Today, I hit my target of earning my first $10k in Melbourne. I did this in 20 weeks, 10 fortnightly pays. If I include UberEats and Cash Tips and various other earnings, I think I am around the $11k range. It's great that I'm earning 5 figure sums which would usually take me forever to earn if I were to be in Singapore. Alas, despite the almost consistently 4-figure fortnightly income and living really cheap (aka almost not paying for any food/transport expenses)... My bank account seems to still be stagnant, just barely breaking even.
I started off with $4000 when I came to Melbourne 7 months ago now. The first two months I had no jobs, had to pay the bond for the house, spent a good $1000+ on furnitures and stuff. At some point it was a 3 figure sum, where it would technically be bankrupt if I don't get a job by the upcoming rent payment day. I wanted to ask for Mum to send money over... but then, that will go against my goal of not asking my family for monetary support in this embarkment of overseas studies. Not like the $26,000 wasn't enough.
Sure enough, I found a job finally. I wished I could've known about this sooner, so I could prep and straight away find a job and start working before even school started. Clearly, this wasn't the case. Then again, that made my journey here much more raw and 'starting from scratch', when I had to figure out the ropes first hand. Be glad whoever that's coming to Melbourne that I have found the greatest hack in traceur-styled hustling. You know who I'm referring to.
Slowly but surely, my bank account started increase and break even. I then really learnt about opportunity cost when I took 2 1/2 weeks off to head to Sydney and Singapore during the Winter break. That 2 1/2 weeks wasn't just about the expensive air tickets, but the fact that I am not earning money in that 2 1/2 weeks, and how all my shifts were taken away and had to be slowly accumulated back when I return. That slowed my earnings down by a huge lot. Not that I'm complaining because the break I had was very much needed, but it's made known to me how I can't afford to keep doing more of these in the Summer break, if I really want to have savings to travel next year.
Then came a series of fines that I had to pay. It was initially supposed to be a meagre $70 tram fine (which was a lot back when I had no job) which blew out of proportions and it will only be decided in court next month what the actual sum will be. It will probably be around $400-$500... which is a crazily huge amount for me. Next, was bumping Hatta's exquisite branded RX8's front bumper because of a super silly mistake, and the next day I was greeted with a $667.50 quote from the car repair shop from Hatta... not sure what kind of trouble I have landed myself in. A week later, pure bad luck struck me again, yet again related to cars, because of driving an unregistered vehicle to repair my bike, and of course there is police out of nowhere, pulling me over, and handing me a $777 fine.
Those figures put me down so hard and it was just when I thought I was doing so well with money and earnings, it seems like someone up there just didn't want me to have it easy. I've been risking by going over the 20 hour student visa limit and prioritizing work over school (sadly, it's kind of true), and it's almost all for nothing.
The bad luck isn't quite over yet.
Just this week, my family came over to visit. Truthfully, I don't actually feel that close to my family, and that's why I hardly spend time with them, and is okay with not skyping/being away from home for loooong periods of time, etc. but it seems like deep down in my heart I still care a lot about them, unknowingly or not. I wanted to make sure they had a good time here so I familiarised myself with driving in Australia roads, learning how to cook, preparing the ingredients, tidying up the house, hoping to impress them with my independence ever since I lived abroad. I had a car that Hatta very willingly helped me out with, he bought a 2nd hand Citroen C3 for A$3,000 specifically because I told him about the plans of travelling around the country in the car, going to Great Ocean Rd, etc. Of course I was really appreciative of his help and started to really learn how to drive (I was so afraid because of previous mistakes and I just never drove without someone else in the car with me), but it seems all and well the first few days, doing UberEats with the car and also finally driving to the airport and back all safe and sound.
However, the 2nd day out with the family ended up SO badly, I don't quite know what to say. Halfway and about 100kms away from Melbourne city, the car's engine overheated and broke down in the middle of nowhere. Not having much knowledge about handling the car, I had to make some frantic phone calls (with barely any signal), hitching rides to the nearest town's mechanic to seek help, but in the end, Hatta help to settle a huge part of it by applying for Road Assistance for his vehicle. So we had it towed back to the nearest mechanic, which then replied to Hatta the next morning saying it would cost more than $2,000 to replace the engine. The tow back to our house costed a total of $480 as well. It was not worth repairing the car so it seems like the only option is to sell it for spare parts for like $500....
I don't know what is it with my luck here and how I can render a $3,000 completely useless in less than a week of having it. It's not that I didn't want to take care of it, not that I am not careful, although I may be inexperienced, but this happens to almost no one but me. I think I have such bad luck that Hatta has told me to seek some kind of spiritual help from the fengshui master or something. Sounds lame, but it seems like something I do need to do, seeing how down in the dumps my life is at the moment.
Of course I didn't want to ask my family to help for this, although truthfully I'm not sure how I can repay this amount to Hatta. He did told me not to worry about this case as it is not urgent, and he would be able to settle it for me, but I have landed him in so much shit, all car-related, despite all his sincere help, and yet, he doesn't complain about it. I really owe him so much, but I have no idea how I can repay this.
My family situation back home hasn't been that great either. It was during this trip, my sister brought to light certain issues happening whilst I'm away. My mum is no longer working her night job as my sister insisted that she quits it, as it is clearly affecting her sleep cycle. My mum's health hasn't been that great, after going through a full body's check up, she is found to be suffering from a low level diabetes. My sister, despite working her hardest and getting a stellar-paying job (earning up to $3.9k/month now), is still struggling to keep up with the bills of the house. My family's savings has been pretty used up, not sure exactly where it is going, it may be due to unhealthy gambling habits, but all I know is, my family isn't doing very well monetarily.
My sister did ask when will I start being able to help her out with the family expenses. Judging from all the plans that I have for next year and how my kind of lifestyle doesn't suit the office 9-5 stable income kind of jobs, I really have no idea how I can contribute. It sucks to feel that I have to start being responsible now and that might sometimes mean giving up your biggest dreams. It seems like this is another reason why I have to head back home instead of thinking of migration, sometimes you feel like they need you, even if you don't feel you need them. Oh well.
I don't have it the easy way like most others do. But yet, I still chose the selfish route of going overseas to study, when I clearly cannot afford it. I knew about this in the back of my head, I knew that I might regret too, but yet I foolishly committed, thinking it's the right thing to do because hey it's Melbourne, what could go wrong. I gave myself the excuse that 'it is only for one year/it's better to have a degree/it's so that I have the overseas experience in Uni', but the truth is, when I'm here, all I realize is how much shit I have (willingly chose to) put myself into, and I'm really struggling to get out. I could've been doing so much more. Sad to say, it sounded very much like me back in army days, being restricted from doing what I really want to be doing, but this time, I have only myself to blame.
I hate to be so pessimistic and down with the outlook of my life, but things keep happening to me in my life that reminds me of how bad this decision was. It's one year of my time and a huge amount worth of money (which in turns translate into more time) that I can never get back.
But since this is the path that I've taken, the only way to solve this is to earn even more money, work even more hours, hustle even harder, and pray for the hardest that no more bad luck comes my way... and eventually, I can compensate for all the setbacks and pay my mum back the money that she has given me for this overseas 'learning' opportunity.
Jaded.
I miss that word. I used that a lot 5 years ago when I remembered my life was at its worst point.
Nothing can really change whatever that has already happened. So chin up, push through, and pray that everything will get better...