LIFE IS GOOD!

In one of my previous posts, “A Month Back Home,” I was sulking a bit because I missed traveling oh so much. Experiencing reverse culture shock is a bit daunting, especially if you just got back from your FIRST trip overseas. Your mind and soul craves to explore new things in life and the thought of moving away from home continues to tug at you.

Not many people can detect that I am feeling this way, even I sometimes deny wanting to go back…

But in the end, I realized that I am REALLY grateful for everyone and everything around me, so I should be happy with what I have. Although I am not out and about across the world, I know there will always be opportunities to travel in the future. We just need to have some sort of plan and go for it.

As I am reaching the end of my graduation, I begin to see the doors of opportunity opening wide. There are jobs EVERYWHERE, even in places where the economy may not be prevailing. It really depends on what you want to do and where you want to go. For myself, I could see myself working in a fast-paced busy city, living the life of an expat in Asia, or even just staying in Vancouver – as long as I am surrounded by good people and work in an entrepreneurial environment, I’m GOOD! Though the latter would not be my preferred option… haha.

I’m currently searching for exciting and attractive opportunities and I can’t wait to see where I will end up in the near future!

A Month Back Home

It’s been about a month since I’ve returned from my 6-month adventure across the world and I still miss everything about it…

The people I met during my exchange to Melbourne still keep in contact with me and we still joke about how one day we will backpack in awesome places around the globe. Most of my buddies have caught the travel bug, like I did, so it doesn’t seem impossible to cross paths in the future. It just depends on where we will meet… New Zealand, Peru, Spain, Iceland… there are so many choices!

I crave to travel and often think about where I want to go to next. Since I’m the type of person who “goes with the flow”, I don’t have an exact plan on my next destination, but if there is a cheap flight out of Vancouver, then I’ll be on it!

Coming back home still feels a bit odd to me. Everything feels like it is happening ten times slower. I was so used to filling my days with crazy activities and maximizing the amount of “fun” while I was backpacking around Asia, so coming home to a comfortable house with my family and going back to school feels very different.

Fortunately, I recently got a job so that is keeping my schedule busy. I’m working in a position within an industry that is really new to me (bill payment processing), so it’s great learning a ton of new things each day. To be quite honest, it is extremely overwhelming learning so much at one time (acronym central!), but I know I will be okay soon enough. My boss is very patient and awesome and the people around me are super cool as well. If it wasn’t for my friend, I wouldn’t have had this opportunity to work at this great company (thanks BYan!).

Now with the new job, I have put into account that I won’t be able to travel as much as I would like to anymore. Maybe I was being a bit naive thinking I could travel wherever, whenever. Yeah, probably. However, it’s time to be a bit more realistic and begin being more responsible with my money. With graduation creeping around the corner, my student loans will no longer be interest-free so I will have to start paying the government back for being so generous to me during the last five years.

I’ll try not to be a party pooper and say no to every invitation that requires spending a bit of money. I just have to set a budget, make better purchasing decisions, and treat myself once in a while to something I enjoy. Traveling is something I yearn to do, but I am willing to save that for another time in the future.

For now, I will live vicariously through pictures and videos of other wanderlusters. I still have a bunch of video clips from my exchange to Melbourne and trip to Asia, so I might create a video compilation soon. One of my friends who traveled with me to Asia has already created one and I have to admit, I have already watched it five times. Man, I miss everyone so much… I didn’t think I would be so attached to traveling!

Let’s hope this semi-depressing lifestyle fades away soon. Gotta focus on the brighter side of things (awesome friends and family, a new job, convocation in June, and more)!

Post Exchange Recovery: Life back as a student…

After landing in Vancouver, I had a panic attack.

A subtle one.

Not many people know that I stopped living my typical life when I left to study abroad. Now step-by-step I will have to re-adjust to my regular lifestyle as a university student. What are the differences? Well, here are some to name:

• I stopped using Google Calendar, whereas before I couldn’t live without it and was constantly updating it with colour-coded events.
• Twitter was out of the question. Australians do not use Twitter (they’re really slow at getting into trends…) and my Windows phone didn’t give me instant Twitter notifications, so I ended up neglecting this once-obsessed social media outlet. I ended up tweeting 3 tweets per month instead of the usual 50 tweets per day. See the difference? I let it go.
• I barely used any other social media outlets – Facebook, HootSuite, LinkedIn. After coming back on my trip, I opened my LinkedIn account and there were heaps of new requests and even direct messages! I felt bad for not replying to a particular one straight away, but I guess it wasn’t that important as they didn’t try to contact me another way.
• I stopped following news and everyone’s life back home. M’bad. I don’t even know what people (including my close friends) are up to nowadays. I guess that just means more coffee dates!
• I ate out everyday. Well, practically every day. Sometimes two or three times a day. Nuh uh, not doing this anymore! My wallet can’t handle afford this atrocity.
• I went out everyday. I was barely at home and was antsy if I was ever alone at home because I got bored often (darn extroverted tendencies), so I always used to call up my friends and go out. Okay, let’s be honest. I was still like this even before I left for an exchange. I was barely at home, but most of my time was spent at SFU or at work.

Okay, okay. You probably get what I mean by living a different lifestyle.

Another big thing I forgot was that the process of student loans takes weeks so now I won’t have money to pay off my tuition on time. Whoops.

Oh well, I just have to take it easy and take it one day at a time. I feel like I’m recovering from a concussion or something, but that’s a bit over-exaggerating. Slow and steady always wins the race – so that will be me for the next few days!

Recovering from jet lag, adjusting to university life, and reconnecting with my friends back home will be on my to do list for now! Wish me good luck!

First Dinner Back with the Oldies!

Guys! I’m back!!!

I’ve been back for about 24 hours now. The first half was spent on sleeping (3:00am to 11:00am) then a bit of blogging and eating (afternoon ’til 5pm) then headed on out to see my friends for the very first time since June!

Not sure if I’m experiencing jet lag but I think I will be okay.

So for tonight’s dinner, there were two options: Sushi California or Taste of Punjab. Those two restaurants are my go-to places when I need some comfort food and are great to host dinner parties at. I only go to Sushi Cali for the delicious Alaska rolls but today’s meal was mediocre and wasn’t as great as I used to think it was. Next time I might go somewhere more convenient like Sushi & Roll. I heard they have the best volcano rolls – ahem – actually, they DO have the best volcano rolls. Kevin and I are loyal customers and will probably head there sometime this week!

Taste of Punjab will be visited sometime soon too – I absolutely love their butter chicken (a classic!) and garlic naan. Stop it. It’s 2:04am and I am making myself drool a little!

Anyway, it was great seeing everywhere again! Not all of the kiddos were able to make it out today due to other prior commitments, but I know I will see the rest of my friends one by one. It was fun laughing with them and telling them stories about my trip. We joked about the way Aussies shorten basically every single word and have funny names for certain items. For example, sunglasses are called “sunnies” and swimsuits are called “bathers”.

Oh, Aussies…

I missed my friends and found out some of them were graduating this semester as well. Can’t believe we’re all getting old… we all met each other in first year way back in 2009! Oh how time flies…

Until next time!