nine four thirteen

yes, the clock just struck 2am , 4th of September 2013. I should be in my bed, sleeping but here I am, wide awake. I have been thinking of my life and the things, the people and just about everything I have left behind. I am surprised I really do not miss it an awful lot, even though I have been there my whole life. I just feel like being with Andrew is the most natural thing to be. What I am yearning for though is to be able to get a job here in this new world I am in, to keep me going and because for me this is but the normal thing to do. I have always been financially independent and it disheartens me when I do not have enough money to sustain my needs, especially now that my savings is dwindling and I still have no idea where I am at this stage in my life when it comes to working. I really want to get a job now and earn for my own and for my husband as well. My only dream is to be able to have a shelter of my own and to be able to travel the whole world before I die. I came here to be with my hubby and of course I was thinking this place is greener. I am dismayed by the fact that it is very very difficult for me as a doctor to be able to work here as one and this is the only work I know I can do as I had dedicated myself to serve humanity with the skills I attained from lots of years of studying and training. Yet, as I am from a 3rd world country, my skills and training are not comparable to what they have here. Weeks and weeks of internet research and job applications, of which all were turned down, made me feel hopeless so much so that at times I feel like I just want to go back home and resume what I was doing. But I am already here, I chosed to be here so I really have to make the most of it. But where do I start? I am really so disappointed and scared that I may not make it. I really want to get on my feet now. I feel a lot of pressure, from his family, from my family even though they never pressure me but I still feel it within. I wanna be successful. I wanna be someone. I am hoping I can be a successful someone  one of these days!cross my fingers!

a photo of me when I was a medical intern (1995)

oh my breadcrumbs

A couple of days ago, I posted photos of the food i had been learning to cook, it included minced pork and naturally , since there are only two of us, the 2-kg minced pork on special at the footscray market that my hubby got , had some left in the freezer. So then I have to think of another way of cooking it and I was reminded of how our helper would serve meatballs for lunch when I was still home. So grabbed my ipad and searched on a meatball recipe, Filipino style and thanks to these blogs and websites I was able to find some. The only problem I had was we didnt have flour or bread crumbs, so I improvised and with some luck there was one loaf of sliced bread left inside its plastic bag so I had to patiently tear that into the smallest bits and pieces I could make and voila....problem solved! I am not sure though if what I did was entirely correct but my dish turned out well and my husband really liked it..and well, I did too!

This is the photo of what i cooked!

cool change

Well, since I am already living in a different atmosphere, which means I no longer have the luxury of having the househelp do most of the household things for me, I have to adapt. I have always been told how totally different it is to be living away from home, how one has to learn to do things on your own such as doing your own laundry, cleaning your house, running your own errands and most of all, cooking your own food. I used to really hate it , growing up, when my sister or my mom, would call me from the kitchen while they were cooking, and when i present myself, I was only told to stay put so that I can observe and learn how to cook. I used to bargain with them and tell them I really do not mind if i run errands for them like a kilometer away, or if they let me iron clothes, sweep the floor, etc, as long they do not call me just to teach me to cook because ,really i had no interest whatsoever in cooking. So, it came to be, that the only dish (if one can call this a dish) i know how to do, is cooking rice , not via rice cooker but in a pot! I learned to do that when I was 11 and as far as I can remember, I really had to learn it by force because it was only me and my mother who were left in the house while my other older siblings were already in college studying away from home. My mom, as a teacher , would come home later than me , since when I was in the 5th grade , my morning classes ended by 11am & my mom , as a Grade 2 teacher, usually finishes later than 11am. So rather than wait for my mother to get home and cook for just the both of us , I was forced to do it , so that when she came home, all she had to do was cook the rest, although most of the time she gets the food from a nearby carenderia. I used to get so scared when the fish is being put in the pan for frying and all these oil would just sizzle and pop everywhere like firecrackers & when at times it lands on your arms or face, it would hurt like hell, at least for me, who in the first place, never really liked cooking. When i went to college myself, I never cooked because all i had to do is buy my food from nearby carenderias or school cafeteria and besides , I was not so into eating, I can go for a day with just biscuits. When i finished school and had a job in the hospital, it became even more convenient for me, to just pop in the canteen and order hospital food , and later on, the food would actually come to me , inside the operating room lounge when i have schedules. At home, we had a house help, who did everything , and such was my life before. 

Yet now, things have changed for me, and as I was already expecting it to be different, I never found it so hard to accept. As i had said before and as always, I chosed this kind of life, so all I need to do is adjust and adapt to this new environment. And yes, part of my luggage were two cookbooks for starters and boy was i happy i got them and brought them with me.

So anyways, I have been here since February of this year, there are times I really do crave foods that are typically homey, typically Filipino but what can i do , it takes time to drive and go to an Asian restaurant and most of all, it is costly to eat out all the time. So i did try to manage to do  a few dishes ,  the ones that are simple and easy ro cook. People here do no really have pork as their usual diet, much more rice but these are the ones I crave for. So I asked my husband if we can at least get some pork from the market and I will do my best to learn to cook it. ( By the way, he also does not know how to cook, so we're even lol!).

Anyways, these are some of the photos i took of the simple foods I am learning how to cook. I take pride in showing these because, it is indeed such an effort on my part to be able to do this. I do not know how to cook but this, for me, is such a huge achievement!

Who knows, I might bump my head one time and wake up thinking I am a culinary expert!

Above is my "ginisang talong"......

I put so much tomato in my "fried ginamos"....

....saging minatamis!

Banana & Kamote cue (sans stick)...

...minced pork !

22 july 13

30 minutes before it becomes another day, i gotta get here and say something! it is important to me because the 22nd of June was that unforgettable day when i tied the knot with the one i love and today is exactly a month after that....

im happy to be a missus! although as ive said before, i have always felt like one even before the wedding. now, we can proceed with processing my visa from fiance to temporary resident which make our hands full with collating the documents to submit to DIAC! today was a busy monday, which started with us asking Dominic, Andrew's friend for a statutory declaration then going to the police station in Moonee ponds to have the documents signed and certified by the justice of peace which unfortunately was around between 12nn - 2pm. i had a bit of a worry when the JOP almost did not signone of my documents saying the one i have is not the original copy because back in the Philippines, when someone asks the National Statistics Office for a copy of one's birth certificate, the department only gives us a photocopy of that with the department's official seal , so he eventually certified the copies of the copy and just wrote on it that those were copies of a copy given to me by the Philippine government.now i am not quite sure of DIAC would honor that but cross my fingers!

So woth that accomplished , we went back to Dom's place for a quick chat where Andrew showed him a few things or two in his pc about laptops and i got to play with Dom's 4yr old daughter Michelle, fondly called Shelley by Dom , who is a very shy girl who never utters a word and doesnt look someone in the eye. but even when she refused to talk she still shyly wanted to play  with het in her toy laptop!

With that done, we then proceeded to Footscray to post some documents to my lawyer friend in the Philippines still with regards to the visa application, and then went on to do a little bit of shopping at an Asian store.

Ever since we went to watch Despicable me on the big screen, Ive fallen inlove withthe minions and so off we went to Mc Donald's to get me a happy meal that comes with one  minion and this made me really happy!

And it didnt stop there coz after we had some rest back at the house we drove again at around 730pm, to pick up a bread toaster that he got online  then we decided to get pizza for dinner.

this life is really quite different from what i was used to in Cebu but so fae, I'm lovin' it and if it is just not this cold Ill be lovin it more!

hitched

well it is the 16th of July 2013 & ive been really lazy writing..yes we already got hitched and im already a Mrs! cool eh! things are really looking good except for the changing the name part and all these hassles to apply for another  type of visa then getting all the requirements to hopefully get a job one of these days. 

the wedding was successful & we had so much fun although my family wasnt around to see me get married but all in all it  was a success and we are both happy with how it turned out!

we had been together for so long that we already felt married long before the wedding took place and so after the wedding, nothing has changed except for the fact that, as we jokingly put it, we cannot leave each other anymore , and we're truly stuck with each other now :-)

but ths is what i want, to be stuck with him for the rest of my life so....no worries!

fifteenth of june twenty thirteen

i am here in australia for almost four months now. for someone like me who has livedmy whole life in a tropical country, a 12 C temperature is so cold for me, and they say this year's winter is mild! so far, i am enjoying so much this new life i have decided to live for myself, quite a big step fir someone like me but i know some time in everyone's lives, we have to make these kinds of hurdles. a week from now i am tying the knot with the guy i am so inlove with for the past seven years...FINALLY! we decided to have a very small, simple wedding with some 40-something guests in a small church with reception at an equally small restaurant. it's all been taken cared of and so we were able to breathe a little easier today and decided to have some day out in the city ( we're in Melbourne by the way ). ive always loved to venture into the city. i enjoy getting ready & putting on some winter clothes that match, from my beanie to my scarf & today i got to wear my new ugg boots!cool!

that's me, somewhere in the city!

anyways, yeah so we did go & just went around the CBD, window-shopped in a bookstore since we both love to read & although we are in the era of ipads & ebooks,it is still somehow good to read a real book & turn over a real page! we didnt get to buy one though hence window shopped. had something to eat in Subway & later had coffee & a brownie in this place called Pie Face. i shouldve been having a meat pie there but i was still full so we just decided to sit around & got coffee instead coz there was a sign that said wifi is free and we just wanted to avail of that!

just one of those days when i am not stressed out with anything. soon after the wedding i might have to think of my future & how to be able to find a job for myself for sooner , savings would be dwindling and i need to survive. i have no family of my own to support me here  & i cant keep on relying on my hubby all the time! im not used to being financially dependent on someone, although i think it would really be cool to just have someone take care of you & your needs!

i am pretty much excited to get married next saturday, never in my dreams have i imagined myself walking down the aisle coz  i was never the marrying type but this has changed now and im pretty much ready to be a wife. that's what love has done to me!