Rest In Peace, Carlena...

Life can be so fragile, huh... Once one leaves this world, you cannot bring them back ever again, even if you just want to see that person one more time and tell them how much you cared for them.

I didn't really know Carlena that well, but she was one of my friend's niece. I met her at Anime Boston 2014 and I got to see her one last time at Anime Boston 2015. I knew she didn't have a happy childhood, but on the outside, she never showed one ounce of sadness. She always looked like a happy child, a kind hearted person. She was a talented child by what I see on her Instagram. She practiced martial art, she dances, and she makes her own anime content on Instagram. She always messaged me on Facebook and started calling me oniichan. I was like okayyyy... One time, I went to visit her at her parent's house. That night, I'm not sure if it was fake or not but she kept saying she heard gunshots and told me to go visit her because her parents left her at the house while they went out for movies. I don't know what was going through my mind, but I kind of just went along with it. When i arrived, she was in her cosplay and she was just at home watching really dark anime MV on YouTube. She showed me some of the music she liked on YouTube and it was all dark stuff with Miku in them. I stayed for a good 30 minutes and told her about an anime called No Game No Life before leaving. That day, she got my number and ever since, she would spam call me ever so often.

I didn't really pay much attention to her in general, but I think she felt blessed that they made some new friends from Anime Boston; including Andy. I'd chat with her on Facebook, but that was about it. Maybe I was important to her, or maybe I'm just another friend. I really wished that I gave her more attention, but I just didn't bother to deal with it. I thought it was just a phase, you know... You're a teenager, super emotional, just wants attention, talk about death, etc. I've been through that stage and I got over it. But now that she has left this world, it just hits me in the face. Was it partly my fault that I didn't assist her? Could I have made a difference if I gave her more attention? Was there anything that I could have done to help her get through the though times?

This freakin sounds like a anime playing in the background; girl finds a senpai and he thinks she's super weird so he ignores her. She goes and do crazy things because things don't work out how she wants it.

I wish I can see her one last time and tells her that things will get better. I hope things will be better now. She's at a happier place now, filled with tranquility and joy. There's no more bullies to pick on her for being different. Rest in peace, Carlena.

Following the footsteps of Christ

Boy, I haven't updated my blog for a while now... I actually did once a few days back, it was something that I didn't want to post about, so I kept it as a draft! It was nothing but complains, so it's not worth posting anyways hahaha...

A lot has happened, but mostly not about me! Where to start... Josh and Cindy are together now!!! What? I knew something was going on when they both would go out and not invite me and Satie. It was so obvious, but when I once said, "Wah! You guys are back early on a date!" in Cantonese once and she denied it saying that I'm thinking too much ahahah... Josh finally told me and Cindy told Satie. But the bad news is that Josh moved out thinking that it might be awkward for them to be together in the same apartment. My new roommate is Ryu! From Japan! He's a bit shyyy and doesn't really talk, but I hope I get to spend some time with him and try to get along better! He goes to sleep at like 10 PM because he is so used to sleeping at 8 PM when he used to work at a factory... The good thing is he's not a light sleeper so opening and closing the god damn room door won't wake him up. I swear it's the worse design in the world to make it click while you're opening or closing it.

Another good new is that my parent's restaurant is finally getting to the selling closing agreement! Their target date is 26th of January. One less burden to worry about because it's not generating any income and we still have to pay property tax, utility bills, etc etc. Even though they're getting rid of it for A LOT less than what they purchased it for, it's better than just letting it sit there because there's really no one else up there thinking about setting up a new business. Throughout the past month, I've been in contact with the real estate agent through email to get go through the process and communicating on behalf of my parents. Win win situation!

What else... At first when Ryu moved in, I was kind of skeptical of him being a good guy. Satie made a good point that maybe I was new to this living in an apartment with different people so I get a bit cautious about new people. It's true because I felt comfortable with Josh and the others and I wasn't really looking forward to getting a new roommate. Some changes are good, some are not!!! What if the new roommate is super weird; weirder than me?! Or someone smelly? Or someone that snores really loud throughout the night? I guess I'm just glad that Ryu is cool. Australia is not as safe as I though it would be. A bit before New Years, Satie tried to sell her Samsung Galaxy S6 edge and she got fake cash... It was my first time seeing fake cash in action and I had a bad feeling about it when the guy pulled out the money (Satie asked me to go with her just in case) and he had a stash of $100 bills... We reported to the police immediately after we figured it out but the useless police didn't even do anything about it after filing a report. They didn't even track the guy's license plate, which I took a peek before he sped off just in case something goes wrong. So much for having a police force. I see them passing out tickets for parking violations, but they don't give a two damn about people losing money or speeding.

Friday marked the first time that I went to my bible study care group without Josh. It was just only seven of us there on Friday night, which is pretty low considering that most of the time, we had around 13 people. It was nice to have just a few of us too. I'm really starting to enjoy being with them. They're really great people and super nice, especially the currently care group leader Nat and Kay. My blessing for the week was that I received a wonderful new roommate and I hope to continue getting along with him. My prayer goes to Josh wishing him well at his new job in the CBD and hopefully he settles down on his new place where Cindy used to live.

Today was also my first time attending church here! Last night, I told Nat and Kay that I had Saturday off, so they asked me to join them and I said sure! They are a Seventh-day Adventist church group, so they worship on a Saturday instead of a Sunday. Today was truly wonderful. I genuinely felt that God has blessed me with all the wonderful people that I got to meet at church. I met a lot of new friends and after church, we went to a botanical garden outside of the city and even visited one of the church member's new house which was super nice! I don't know... Maybe because I joined a care group before going to the church? Or maybe this church is a small closely knitted group of people. When I was attending church in Boston, I didn't felt like I was meeting new people. There were a lot of people and majority of them already had their groups established and their group of friends. The people I meet there, it was more like oh, they're sitting next to me, so we're just going to introduce each other and move on after that. It was hard to establish a longer term friendship. Also, I didn't want to do any after worship activities because I didn't really know anyone. But today, I got to participate with the after worship activities and spend Sabbath with a bunch of awesome people. I want to make a genuine effort to continue going to care group every Friday night and attend morning church whenever I do not have to go to work! Who knows... Maybe one day, I'll get converted into Christianity! Ahahah... I'm not sure. I don't think I have that much devotion. But I met this woman from Hong Kong that is probably in her 60s. She was telling me how studying the bible gives her happiness and provide her a different prospective at viewing life. When you run into troubles or things in life, you might get reminded of a passage from the bible and you will smile and know that God is with you at all times. Before, I think that people cannot rely on God. It's all about your hard work, effort, and a bit of luck that gets you through life. But it's not such a bad feeling to be reminded that God is watching over you and as long as you welcome him into your life, he will guide you trouble most of your troubles and doubts. Our speaker today was struggling between studying to be a doctor and taking his time off on Sabbath day. Tutoring session were only available on Saturdays, but Saturday is reserved to be for worshiping and a day where they don't do any other activities. He chose God over attending the tutoring session even though he will miss the extra knowledge and practice that would help him pass the exam. Due to his loyalty to God, the tutors decided that they could help him on other days just for him and the speaker felt that it was God's doing. He ended up passing his exam and is now a pediatrician. I think I'm babbling on for too long, but I don't understand this feeling. Is it because I am meeting new people that is getting me excited? Is it because I am giving the religion a try that God is blessing me with new friends and a happy life? Who knows... But I just lost two games on League of Legends......

Haha, I need to get some sleep. Work tomorrow zzz... Until next time.  

Lost in Thoughts

Oh geez... The bad thoughts are flowing in my head again.

I started listening to Monstercat again. By the way, Monstercat is awesome! I decided to Google them. They're a Canadian independent EDM record label that helps artists get their music out there. I started looking through all the artists that have had their music put up by Monstercat and there are 90s people! @_@ There's a guy born in 1995 and I'm like... Man, there are all these people younger than me in this world making a name for themselves. The girl from Melbourne Knowledge Week was a few months older than me but already been selected to be Australian of the Year 2012. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs was already working on their first computers at this age. Mark is only a few years older than me and his net worth is in the billions... These EDM artists started with nothing but a passion for music. They only worked with that they had when they were little and look how far they have come to be just because they're driven by what they are passionate about. Here I am, traveling in Australia in search of what I really want to do with my life. Looking at my resume, it's stuff from all over the place; Human Resource, Systems Specialist, Bachelor of Business in Accounting & Information Systems, expertise in Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, barista course taught by David Seng, speaks English, Cantonese and Mandarin. What is it that I can make out of this? Business, Art, IT, Accounting, Customer Service, Coffee, Language. I play League of Legends whenever I have the opportunity to do so. I get into little anger fits with my housemates because of little things. Other times, I'm hitting F5 on Facebook or browsing through Reddit for some fun stuff to read on /r/AskReddit. After work, I come home, take a nap, slack off a little bit, and cook a nice dinner for myself.

Today, I cleaned up the whole apartment and headed off to the library. I applied for a Sales Consultant position for the Samsung store in Melbourne Central, but they already got back to me that they don't want me ahahah... Then I started reading the Monstercat thing and now I'm here on Blogspot again.

I don't want to be famous. I just want to make a name for myself. It's like, I want to be someone that others can say, wow, Henry is pretty awesome. I want to do something like what he's doing when I have the ability to do so! I'm not satisfied with a just okay life. I want to do more with my life. If I stayed at home, keep my job, buy a house, find a girl, start a family, and live a normal moderate life like my mom wanted me to do, I would definitely 100% regret my life. Is it because our generation want more than just having a normal life? I think it is because we grew up with all these rising young entrepreneurs that makes us want to achieve more in life. Today, not only old people are successfully wealthy. Back in my mom's generation, they immigrated to USA just so we can have a better life. They go to work everyday hoping to save up money so we can live a comfortable life. I can't do that. I don't want to do that.

I think I'm on the right track though. The first step to improving is to get out of my comfort zone. I'm in Australia now. Not that many people can just leave everything behind, pack a small backpack (according to some people because they think 48L backpack is wicked small), and go to a country where they don't know anything or any people. I need to keep pushing myself further out of the boundary zone. I need to walk on the edge of the cliff. I need to take risks with no regrets.

Before college, I didn't really achieve anything. I really feel like luck has been playing on my side all along though. I landed my summer program with the University of Hong Kong in 2012. I landed a job like I wanted 3 months out of college. I met Tran in Australia which led me to getting the current housekeeping job so I can earn some money for my travels. The only thing missing is to discover what I really want to do... I'd like to think it's never too late but I'm getting to my 30's soon and I feel like I'm still acting like a little child being lazy and getting no where. @_@;

Come on, Henry... You can do it! 2016 is the year!

Happy New Year!

Wish everyone a Happy New Year! :)

I had New Years Eve off but not New Years day, so I didn't do much for the night. On New Years Eve, I decided to go to Geelong again, but this time with Satie. It was way too hot to do anything, so we just sat around and relaxed for the day. That night, we celebrated it together but we're all like grandpas and grandmas. We just stayed in and watched movies all night haha... We were watching My Sassy Girl until it was 11:58 PM so we decided to pause the movie and dash to the 7th floor balcony to watch the fireworks. Our apartment is right on the main street of the city overlooking Flinders Street Station. We had the perfect view of the fireworks! But the fireworks wasn't that great. It lasted 10 minutes and it was boring comparing to Boston's Independence Day fireworks. We went back to the apartment and continued to watch My Sassy Girl until like 3 AM. @_@; So much for staying in so I can sleep early and get to work the next day.

New Years resolution... Nothing much on my list. I hope to start working out more often which I've been going to the gym in my apartment; but it's wicked small. There's a mirror in the gym so the first time I looked at the gym and didn't go in, I thought it was huge gym due to the reflection ahaha... Turns out it's the smallest gym ever -- even smaller than the one I had at my old work place. There's one set of dumbbells, one bench, one leg weight machine, a treadmill, an elliptical, and a bike zzz... So if anyone we to be in there, you'd have to wait your turn or do something else while you wait. Dumbbells only go up to 20kg (44lbs). I want to find a Toastmasters Club around the area and start going. Thanks to Isabel's introduction because I really think Toastmasters help with public speaking, your confidence skill, and general just get better at speaking. I kind of not like going because people there are usually crazily good at it and I feel like they are judging me when I speak! Nonetheless, it's a good club. Another one is I guess to get more productive with my time. Man, every time I get internet, I see if I can play League of Legends. If I can, I'd start playing game after game non-stop... Just today, I played 4 rounds already and I wanted to continue playing. This is why I can't play games! I can't wait for Pokémon Go to come out though!!! I hope it's a success hehe.

As for work, it's pretty good. I understand what my mom means when she says physical work is tough and that office job is so relaxing. I don't feel rewarding sitting in the office though. After a long hard day cleaning the hostel, I feel rewarded. I'm tired and worn out, but it feels good; like the adrenaline is going through me after a workout. We had a new person starting the other day. I'm not sure if he'll last long. During the interview, he said he is available to work any day but after getting the job, he keep saying he only wants 3 shifts a week and no double weekends. They only hire people that are available to work any day, so I kind of lied his way into the job. His excuse is that he has a family and other important things to attend... Also, he might be new to this, but I feel like he's so slow at doing everything. I don't think I was THAT slow when I started working. Which bring me to the case that one of the supervisors keep complaining about me washing the showers too slow. She was also the one that blamed me for not spraying bleach because she doesn't smell it. When she does the shower, I caught her not spraying bleach either; which is why she does it so much faster because she's skipping steps. Whatever, man... That's the only person I feel painful working with in the bathroom. Aside from her, everyone else is mad chill and cool! It shouldn't be too hard to stay here for 6 months. I'm still thinking about the second job though even though I haven't been looking. We'll see how that goes.

Housemates are fine I guess. Josh went to camping for a few days with the Christian care group. The apartment just doesn't feel the same without him. T_T The girls... Man, it's only tolerable when they're not together. When they're both here in the apartment, it's so intolerable. Every time I say something or do something, they have something negative to say about me. When I get comfortable with people, I don't hold back what I have to say. Due to this, some people think I get really annoying because I'm always babbling on. But seriously, I don't need you two to keep bullying me. I already told Satie that I don't like how she complains about me complaining and she toned it down a bit. It's like, they would mock me or say something to make me sound bad. I'm sure they're joking around, but it gets old and tiring after a while especially when you do it all the time. Majority of the time, I'd just ignore them. When I don't have nice thing to say, I won't say it because I don't like it when other people do that to me too. It's only appropriate if it's something you cannot tolerate if it continues. I snapped today because I was playing League and Satie wanted me to join her to the gym. I said 30 minutes. She waited and ask if I was ready. I said it has only been 23 minutes (because of the timer on my game). Cindy blurbs out that my clock must be broken and I can't tell time; I'm just addicted to the game and not going to go to the gym. What? I yelled back saying that my game has a timer so stop fucking around with me. I might be way over in my head, but it's annoying since it's just happening constantly. I'm on the verge of just stop talking to them when they're both around. This is why I can't live with friends. I don't even know if I can live with a partner. Sometimes, I just love the alone time. There's no one to tell me what to do or deal with anyone. #alone5ever I'll work it out.

Life in general has been great. :) I have work, I have free time, and I'm doing what I love. My mom keeps sending me videos and pictures of Dexter. I miss him so muchieeee... But I don't know if I'm ready to go home. I will see once I get near the end of my working holiday visa. Until then, just keep slowly drifting~

2016 is going to a good year! Continuing my journey through life. Nothing's going to bring my down! Keep on going and keep on rolling~