Focus on Wellington

Sorry for my absence. When I went to Wellington I did not bring my computer and then when I got back there was no internet at home for a few days and then routine set in. But in off today and thus would like to share an update with you.

So two weeks ago I was in Wellington with Jason, getting to know my soon to be new home and hoping to find a place to live. In both of those I was successful and I'm very happy about that! For those of you familiar with Wellington, we found an apartment just a 1/2 block off Cuba street, near the Southern Cross. For those of you unfamiliar with Wellington, we're right in the city and very happy for it. Jason was great in making sure we would live somewhere near to where I was likely to work and central so it would be easy for me in the beginning when I will likely be unemployed and as well for us to be close to the action.

We have signed a lease for a one-bedroom loft style apartment that is fully furnished. And when I say fully furnished, I mean fully furnished. It literally comes with everything! Jason moved in last week and hasn't had to buy a single thing for the place. It comes with all the glasses, dishes, cutlery, a vacuum, even sheets and towels (although we do plan to get our own of these). Finding this place, in a great location and completely ready to go has made this whole process so much less stressful - especially for Jason who is already living there, and working 12-14 hours a day and has no time to go furniture shopping! Let alone having to commit to a whole houseful of furniture when you don't even know how long you are committing to a city/country.

All that being said, I'm going to go for the long haul here. I had a job interview yesterday with a hotel in Wellington and it went really well. I will be having a follow-up interview next week and hopefully they will like me enough to give me a job offer. That being said, the visa process for Wellington is a bit different than Singapore and I do need to provide lots of documentation for the visa application, including police records and health certificates depending on the length of time I want to stay in NZ. And with this, I'm going to go all in. I will do all the things I need to do this time around so if we do end up staying a while, I don't have to do it again later. Who knows what will happen, but I'd rather be over prepared than under prepared!

As for Singapore, I've got 17 days left here and they are going to fly by. I've got two more weeks of work, a few off days scattered throughout, and then New Zealand here I come!

I guess one other reason I haven't had time to update my blog recently is because I have been following the news out of Houston obsessively. How sad to see that city under water but what a plethora of heart warming stories coming out of this tragedy. It is always so great to see how humanity really gets it together during a tragedy and people forget about all the hate and prejudice and their difference and work together as best they can for the common good and survival of everyone.

Sending positive thoughts from Singapore!

The Sadness is Setting In

It is Sunday night right now, 11:00pm, and I am flying down to NZ in three days to spend the weekend with Jason, get acquainted with my new new, and try to find us a place to live. With the reality of this move starting to come up very quickly (as I have already started to pack up my things so I can take a fair bit with me on this trip) I am finding quite a bit of sadness setting in when I think about leaving Singapore.

Of course, as it always is, I never appreciated Singapore when I lived here. Well, maybe I shouldn't be quite so harsh, but now that I know it's coming to an end, I'm trying to suck every last bit of goodness out of my time here.

This evening I went out for dinner with some friends and when we finished up around 9:30pm, I walked all the way home, over 3 miles, by myself, at night, in the warm weather, and never once did I feel unsafe. What an amazing country this is! Jason keeps telling me Wellington is safe, and I'm sure it is, but I am also sure that I will never live in another place again where I feel as safe as I do here in Singapore. Unless, of course, I were to move back to Singapore.

I also realize, on this nice walk home, that I have spent more of my adult (post-college) life in Singapore than I have in any other country. This has become my adult home, and I am leaving it. There are so many things about my life here that I know could be better, but this is the life I have come to know so well, and it is very sad to see it coming to an end.

I am also feeling the end of my life as I have known it these last 4 years since I left the states. Once I move to Wellington, I won't just have myself to consider anymore, I will also have Jason. I can't just do what I want all the time, I will also have to think about his wants and needs. And I will lose that freedom I have had for such a long time.

But all that being said, I am feeling more and more confident with every passing day that this move to Wellington is by far the best decision I could have made. I no longer feel any hesitation or doubt, I feel only calm and confidence that I have made the correct choice. I am looking forward to being able to share my experiences with someone, to having a more steady and normal life, to being in a new county again (or at least a new part of a not-so-new country). I am so excited to head down this new path, sending my life in a completely new direction once again, and am looking forward to seeing where this new path leads. And I hope I will once again have more time so I an share these experiences with you once again.

What to do in New Zealand...

My move is coming up now in less than 7 weeks. Yesterday I bought my final one-way flight out of Singapore, destination Welling. With this move I am taking a lot of chances, and a big one is with my job/career. I am leaving a job at a bar that was just named the 12th best bar in Asia to move to country where I have no legal right to work and no leads on jobs. I do think I will probably be able to find something when I get there, but the question of the day is, what kind of job do I want?

I have, for a few weeks now, been set on the idea of getting a job as a waitress at a restaurant, a low-stress job that would allow me a much better work-life balance that I have had for most of the last 2.5 years here in Singapore. But these last few days, maybe the last week, has really had me questioning that line of thinking.

In my current role, I spend a significant portion of my time in the office, doing administrative work and helping to keep the place running for the team. Despite how much I enjoy the working hours this has afforded me, especially when Jason was here and we were able to hang out many nights each week, I have recently started to find my job rather boring. I don't feel like every day is a challenge. I find work quite boring, but I also find that I come home from work exhausted but not tired, my brain feeling like it hasn't been used enough during the day. I much prefer for my brain to have to be working hard all day. When I leave a work day like that, I come home invigorated but ready to sleep. I sleep straight through the night and get up the next day, ready to tackle the next problem at hand.

Working on the floor at a restaurant is generally like this. Every customer is a new challenge, every day brings about another attempt to be as efficient and as effective as possible. With my current job, I don't feel that challenge. And I don't think it is because my job is coming to an end.

Anyways, with this move, this is obviously a great opportunity for me to take a different direction, if I want to. I would like my days to be filled with interesting conversations, readings, learning, and things that I am passionate about. Alcohol, I am not passionate about. It is probably best I do not take another job in a bar.

I am feeling a bit lost at the moment. Lost and bored. I don't find my days intellectually stimulating enough. Work is not a constant challenge. I like to feel pressure but not to feel so overwhelmed I cannot handle it. I like to know there is a lot of work to do, but I also like to know there are some boundaries around my work life. I am bored and I want to be learning again. I want to be gaining new skills, learning new subjects, pushing my brain to work hard every day. I don't feel that is happening at the moment but I am not sure what my next step should be or even what it could be.

I quite often find myself feeling like I don't have any real skills. I'm not skilled in any physical labor jobs. I am also not skilled in any professional jobs - lawyer, doctor, etc... I feel like I am a very capable person, can learn quickly, am very sharp, but I am never going to get a job as I don't have the concrete skills or experience you need to start down any path except for the one I have been on.

Maybe back to school is the answer? I always loved University. Maybe I should study again? But what?

Wow, so much to think about. Before I keep rambling on and on I will bring this post to a close.

Have a great day!

A Big Change in the Near Future

I have just looked back now in my blog history and see it has been just over 1 year since my last post. As I have some big changes coming up, I thought it may be a good time for another post as many of you may not now about them yet.

I have resigned from my current job here in Singapore and will be moving to NZ in just under 2 months. The exact date for my move has not been set yet, but will most likely be September 19 or 20. My last day at work here in Singapore will be on September 17, 2017, I will spend two or three days packing my things, and will then be flying off with a one way ticket to Wellington.

This change may come as a surprise to many of you, as it has to me as well, but I am very much looking forward to the future.

Now, how this all came about.... I have met a wonderful Canadian named Jason who has invited me to join him for his next job assignment in New Zealand and after much debate, both internally and between the two of us, we have decided it is a risk worth taking and soon we will be hoping that our grand experiment turns out for the best.

Jason will be starting his job in Wellington on August 15th but unfortunately I am not able to tidy everything up in Singapore so quickly. I will be flying down to Wellington on August 16th for 6 days so we can hopefully find a house together and then will be going back to Singapore for four more weeks of work before my final move.

During the decision making process it was a huge emotional roller coaster, and again even after the decision was finalized. I was so confident that once I finally resigned from my job, and there was no turning back, I would feel much better. But in the end, I didn't, and I immediately started to worry I had made the wrong decision.

That was, until, one day last week when I received the following story in my e-mail box as part of The Happiness Project Blog daily e-mail:

As I’ve mentioned many times, I love examples of someone knowing the right thing to say.

In this case, a doctor said the right thing to my friend — when she admitted to feeling a little let down by the news that she was going to give birth to a boy. She’d been so excited to be having a baby, boy or girl, but when she heard the news, she felt a bit sorry.

He told her, “Of course you feel this way. Before you knew if you were having a boy or a girl, you could look forward to both experiences. Now you know that you’re having a boy. It’s natural to feel regret about the future that’s not going to happen.”

I thought that was such a wise observation. Sometimes in life, going down one path means abandoning another path. And it’s natural to feel regret about the path not taken. That doesn’t mean you’re unhappy with the path you’re on.

Although I'm not having a baby, this is exactly how I was feeling. Before I have totally finalized my decision, I was still about to envision my life going down both paths, 1) here in Singapore, with my great job at one of the top bars in the world, living in the tropics, in Asia, in such an exotic place or 2) taking an opportunity to prioritize my personal life, try to make a partnership work with a wonderful person, have another exciting move that will put my life in a whole new and unpredictable direction. 

Once the decision was final, all I could think about was what I was no longer going to have here in Singapore. And many of the things I was starting to worry I would miss, are things I don't even enjoy or prioritize when I'm living here. 

After reading this passage, it all made sense, and I was able to stop feeling guilt about my feelings of regret and accept that I can be sad about not continuing my journey here in Singapore but that does not mean that I made the wrong decision nor does it mean it will make my time in Wellington any less good. 

As well, a few months ago I hung the following quote up on my wall:

You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it. 

This quote is said by the grandmother in Parenthood. I first remember writing down this quote on one of those contact cards you would use in a rolodex when I was in treatment. Looking back now, I 'm sure exactly what I got out of the quote at the time. I do see it may be relevant if the merry-go-round is sticking with my eating disorder and the roller coaster is going through treatment and trying to get better. But anyways, Jason and I always remind each other of this quote now whenever things are feeling difficult, knowing that it won't be so hard when we are back together again in NZ. 

That is my update for today. 

Hope everyone is well!