A little hiccup.

My holiday to Mexico has barely begun yet I’ve experienced so many things today I want to write down.

I’m sitting at the Qantas Lounge, it’s been about 3.5 hours since I got here and my flight to Dallas has been delayed 8 hours meaning I will miss my connecting flight to Cancun and I have to stay a night in chilly Dallas (last checked it was 7degrees eeep! I only have summer clothes packed, uh oh). That’s ok, that’s life I supposed. Me before moving to Australia would probably be cursing my bad luck and be quietly seething in rage – how dare the world inconvenience me. Boy, I used to be such an entitled brat.

The customer service officer at the Qantas counter was empathetic to our situation and showed competence in his job as he managed to get us a few options for us (transiting to Vancouver instead which was unavailable as we wouldn’t be able to get a Canadian visa in time or adding an extra stop after Dallas at Honolulu which would put us in Cancun 3 hours earlier tomorrow – however that would include a 10-hour layover). Spending a night in Dallas felt like the best option). He printed our boarding passes and sent us off with a cheerful wave and said “Don’t let this little hiccup get to you, don’t you get upset, you’re going to have a wonderful holiday!” I really appreciated that and gave him my biggest smile. I was already impressed by how well he did his job (I’m sad to say I’ve met so many people who really don’t try) and also happy he didn’t ever once say anything like “oh typical Qantas” or “yeah it’s a shitty situation”. I get the feel he likes his job and is proud of Qantas, which is such a great attitude!

With hours to kill, I started reading my 2nd book of the year (woohoo!) ‘Becoming’ by Michelle Obama. The book flows easily and I’m thoroughly enjoying it, my only fear now is that I finish the book in 2 days.

I occasionally glance up at the other travellers in the lounge, the man behind me is very fidgety, and frequently bumps my seat, so much so that I have to move my one-seater sofa forward – which makes it out of line with all the other sofas :C

I notice the table beside us has a Tumi bag, a pixel phone, a laptop and a Gucci purse left unattended with 2 other carry-on suitcases. I feel uncomfortable just looking at that and I could never leave my 1/20th-of-the-price items left unattended at a public place, even if it was a business lounge.

I spy a man eating his ice cream from a tiny cup with a spoon and fork. He is carefully loading his spoon with ice cream and taking very gentle bites. How interesting!

Marty takes a shower and I decide to take one too. This is the first time I’ve ever taken a shower at an airport and oh my goodness, what a treat! The shower stall is huge and is more than double my height, so about 3.5metres tall? The rain shower has the perfect pressure and the soaps smell delicious. A hot shower must be one of my favourite feelings in the world. Closely followed by the feeling of taking your shoes off after a long day (especially if they’re heels) or the feeling of food (like the scampi nigri from Toko) melting in your mouth, heck I could eat some of that now!

There’s only about 30minutes left before we head to the gate. I’m going back to Michelle’s childhood now!

New cooking blog?

So I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands and that has led to all sorts of wild ideas. Each day I fluctuate between being excited to try something new, getting dejected when I get an automatic decline on a job application, perking up when I hear a call or new email, feeling guilty when I’ve spent the past 3 hours gaming..

Aside from applying for jobs and interviewing, I’ve been reading and watching some anime and playing Pokemon Shield and going for aerial classes. So far on track to meet my 2020 goals!

I also thought I’d try writing a food section on my blog – so on the right you’ll see ‘Ayesha in the Kitchen‘ where I’m going to put recipes. I’ll try to keep them simple with no backstory or random thoughts and comments (which is going to be difficult for me!) I’m not sure how I want that page to look like yet so it’s super basic right now. I’ll put more thought into it and if I can’t sustain writing new recipes then.. I’ll delete that page and pretend it never existed :p

I also want to write some lyra tutorials or infographics – maybe when I get better at it 🙂

2020, the year of..

2019 ended pretty nicely. I went home and saw my family and my darling nephews, Marty had his first experience holding a baby.

Most of the trip was rainy but we got ONE sunny day where we went to the Bird Park :3

Most importantly, we had yummy foods every day, including a hotpot at home!

Back in Australia, we had a fun Christmas Lunch and rang in the new year, new decade at the Ryman Resort with the MPA crew! Here are a bunch of beautiful photos from Luc and some silly polaroids.

We ate, we laughed, we sang, we danced, we got got!

And now, it’s time for my reset, I’ve thought of more concrete goals for the year than usual, so I have no excuse, I can’t allow myself to take shortcuts. Up first, in the “General Life” category –

  • Find a fun new, hopefully permanent job!
    Yes it was my last day at AL on Friday. It was a short and sweet adventure and I’m glad I sated my curiosity of the VFX industry. Of course I’ve only seen and felt the tip of the iceberg but I am in a better place than before.
  • Learn 6 new recipes/try cooking 6 new things (cooking or baking)
  • Keep my new indoor plant babies alive and healthy
    I received stole a Rubber plant at Secret Santa and recently bought a Peace Lily to help sleep better 🙂
  • Write here at least once a month, and write something meaningful and try to stop ranting so much and feeling sorry for myself :p
  • Read 6 books, once every 2 months is do-able right?!
  • Get lasik eye treatment
  • Get Australian PR (can’t really influence this one, might stretch into 2021) and then plan move to the US

I’ve been feeling like a potato, I need to stop being half-assed and actually exercise more consistently.

  • Fix back posture. Think I’m doing OK on this one, I actively remember every 10 minutes or so to straighten up, hopefully it becomes subconscious soon!
  • Achieve front and side splits
  • Advance 2 levels in Lyra, currently in Emeralds, so I need to complete Rubies!
  • Advance to High Intermediate in Tennis (honestly might be the toughest of my fitness goals just cause how difficult it is to get a booking – I know this sounds like an excuse but it’s true!)
  • Achieve Handstands! (this is a stretch goal, a nice-to-have :))

People need to set fun goals too! Soooo, I’d like to..

  • Get better at snowboarding (possibly go overseas a snow holiday to NZ or Japan if I can nail my S turns!)
  • Visit NZ and try swimming with whales (this goal is to be fulfilled before moving to the US so can be delayed to 2021 depending on circumstances
  • Attend a music festival or some other fun event overseas.

GAMES! It’s silly but I really do want to complete these games, because even though I love games, I get distracted so much from them and I even play casino games like slotvibe and others!

  • Finish Breath of the wild
  • Pokemon Shield
  • Witcher 3
  • ?
  • ?? (leaving a couple blanks for games that come out in 2020 and I want to make time for!)

On top of those goals I’ve also decided that I’m now discarding all my old negative thoughts – what I mean is that I’ve done a bunch of stupid shit, I said stupid things and hurt people. I’ve been careless, blunt and rude over the years and I’ve held a large amount of guilt and remorse inside me.

To the people whom I’ve offended who I possibly will never see again – I’m sorry.

Some people who I’ve pissed off, have blocked me online and pretend I don’t exist – I’m sorry.

I don’t have the time or energy to think about you and feel bad anymore. I hope you understand I was young, stupid, naive and careless – and can get over that. I’m done beating myself up for silly things I did in the past. I can’t undo it so I hope if we meet again, you give me another chance and forgive my past self.

I want to look forward and work on my present and future.