Dark Clouds, Aussie-style

November must be one of the most challenging months for me. Pressures with finishing assessments, problems with the family back home, unrequited love problems... those are some of the things that plagued me for the past weeks, and as the old adage says, "when it rains, it pours."

Although I hate to admit it, I think I had a serious bout with depression two weeks before my final deadline, which was only last week. I could not function well. I could not sleep. I drink to drown my sorrows. One of the serious things I noticed was my poor sleeping pattern. I barely have 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night. To make matters worse, I submitted 2 assignments late because I could not think properly.

I know I should have asked for help, to reach out. Yet I knew that my sounding board, Sewang, was going through a roller coaster of emotions of her own. I could not burden her even more. Two of my closest friends in uni went home to their respective families in their home countries, leaving me feeling all alone in the most crucial part (yet) of my postgrad experience. Yet I appreciate it when they check up on me once in a while. It's as if they have never left my side, but who am I kidding.

It is not fair to say that I am already over it. In fact, I just guzzled 2 1/2 beers tonight just to feel numb (not entirely tho, since the first 1 1/2 cans of beer I drank were at a karaoke night with fellow international students.) I drank another one at home to keep myself from breaking down. What's even harder is that I can't cry. Even if I want to, even if my heart is bursting at the seams. Even if I want to shout at the top of my lungs, yet no sound is coming out. As if I am falling into an abyss. Some hands are reaching out, yet I still feel that my hand is slowly slipping away. Even my faith is being tested. I want to give up. To not feel anymore pain. This is all too much. I don't think I can still keep this seemingly strong facade anymore. I just want to break down and cry...yet no fucking tears are coming out. What the hell is wrong with me?

In nine days I will be coming home to Zamboanga. Maybe because what I am going thru is normal for a student in a foreign land. All the uncertainties, the feeling of inadequacy- that I am not good enough, not smart enough, not fast enough. I pray to God that my current state is just "normal."

It is so hard when you were the source of strength of some of the people around you, but when the strength is gone, to whom shall I draw strength from? My mind is blown. The people around me seem oblivious with what I am going thru.

I am just trying to get by each day. Each waking moment. Hoping that the dark clouds hovering over me will disappear. That there will be a new day, a new hope, a renewed strength for me.

5th Month!

I just checked the time (and date) on my laptop and realized that it's the 8th of the month, which means it's our 5th month here in the land down under. Who knew five months would just go by just like that. I only have two major papers (one is a 4000-word essay due on Friday) until next week, and first semester (technically, second) is gonna be a wrap!

Wow!

There are so many things I have learned and is learning- about school, architecture, sustainability, about building relationships and making friends, how to get by with housemates, etc. etc. So many things to adapt to, people to adjust to, makes one think that we are living inside the Big Brother House. Indeed, this might be the PBB Oz Edition. Lol. I just totally made that up, but it sure feels like we are "housemates" with an invisible hand watching over us (stalking our fb and instagram?). Now I know how it feels to be away from one's family, away from home and our comfort zones, away from close friends and to have mixed emotions about basically anything.

Here I am again with this emotional stuff. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

TGIS: Thank God, it's Spring!

Cadigal Greens, University of Sydney (Camperdown Campus)

I just got out from our intensive class in Indoor Environmental Quality class, one of our core (/major) subjects in the Architectural Science program I am currently enrolled in. It's rightly called "intensive" because it's a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. class with an hour lunch break, and 2 or 3 10-minute coffee breaks in between. Luckily today, our prof and two guest lecturers finished early! So here I am, lounging on one of the bench/outdoor chair things at Cadigal Greens, enjoying the breezy, fresh Spring air, on a beautiful, laid back Friday afternoon, with earphones in place and a heart bursting with emotions at the seams.

I don't think i have ever written a feel-good post. Well, this is one... Today was just simply a good day. I did not feel sleepy during class, perhaps because my hibernation mode during winter has finally come to a close... Or it must be the two cups of Kopiko Brown I brought to class with me as my arsenal. Either way, I am happy that I survived it.

So many things have happened for the past three months since we started our #AASJourney: meeting and forming friendships with other students from other parts of the world, being overly attached (Read: "clingy") with fellow Filipino scholars, touring around Sydney, visiting musems (making the most out of the free Opal trips during weekends), attending free workshops (or paying for relatively cheap ones), shopping (!!!), getting through first round of gruelling assessments, family visiting me for 5 days -to name a few. The most unforgettable moment, not only for me and I'm sure with other AAS scholars as well, was when one of our Indonesian classmate, Tyo, suffered a heart attack during our Orientation Class. Yes, during class. And that memory will forever be etched in our hearts.

Yet, I cannot be more thankful for having given this opportunity to experience all this. My heart is overflowing with gratitude, and I know that academic life will only get tougher as time goes by. Homesickness will come knocking on our doors soon, as our 3-month honeymoon phase concludes. I pray that we will be able to surpass this. I pray that we can make through this, just like we survived our first winter.

The wind is getting chilly now, I think I better get inside the library or something.

Until next post....

Thank God for Spring. 😊😊😊

Hello from the Other Side

Sydney from the airplane!

G'day, Mate!

It's 12:04 a.m. Sydney time (GMT +10) and it has been 2 months and 9 days since I arrived in the land down under, Australia. I realize that I haven't posted anything since we set foot here on June 8, 2016. Needless to say that so many things (good and bad to terrible) things have happened, and to think that it's only the beginning of our Australia Awards Journey. I am surprised at how resilient we are despite everything, and I am thankful that we have each other (but let's not get too mushy just yet.)

Perhaps I can still catch up with my blog- in between tantamount readings and assessments. Besides, blogging has always been my best form of my, er, procrastination (hihihi.) This is somewhat putting oil on the gears, to somehow prepare myself in writing lengthy, "academic-sounding" essays and texts. Although, I also found a new fondness of cleaning- which is also a "productive" means of being "unproductive" (if you know what I mean.)

This post shall attempt to summarise all the events that transpired for the past months (notice the use of "s" instead of "z" in spellings, that's being Aussie right there, mayt! =P) Hopefully, I could write according to the timeline in the coming weeks.

But first, let's start from the beginning....

My First Six Months in the Construction World

I can't believe it's already Christmas in 3 days! THREE DAYS!!!

Saying that I have been busy for the past months could be the understatement of the year. Since the construction of our house started last June, it has been one heck of crazy, stomach churning, hair raising ride of emotions since then.

I feel like a newbie soldier that just has come out of a battlefield...bruised, filthy, bloodied to the very core... limping, yet walking slowly away from the crazy inferno. I guess construction life does this to people (at least to me.)

I have learned a great deal more about architecture, engineering, construction, and surprisingly, about business (among others) in the past six months in the construction world. It definitely trumps all those years of slaving around in a 9 to 5 job in front of a computer, with the occasional yells and burns from the boss and annoying co-workers. Although I have been an architect for 4 years now, I can say that I still have so much to learn.

Everyday is a learning process for me. Every client, every laborer or worker I work with, every peso I lost due to my own negligence, every lapse of judgement, every problem I encountered- they are all instruments that could make me better at what I do someday. Who knows, five, ten years from now, I could look back to this moment in my career and still be thankful for all the challenges I was able to surpass, with God's grace.

There were number of times that I wanted to give up, to not go on living. To runaway and leave is the easier route. But in my mind, and in my heart, this is what I wanted to do. I want to build and design people's dreams. I want to give to them their hard earned money's worth (though I learned this the hard way.) I need to fail in order for me to succeed. The lessons I took away are more important than the monetary gains.

There's this quote I have read somewhere that's quite fitting for my first six months of my solo career:

"If you fail, fail fast."

PMS-ing

Depression.

It comes in all forms and sizes. Just browse your facebook wall. Some will keep ranting about whatever crap they are going through - cursing, complaining, fussing about the inequalities of whatever.

For others, well, some just like to sleep all day long, wishing that everything will be alright when they finally wake up. But they never do.

For many others still, they keep buried in work. Tons and tons of work. Until their life is literally sucked out from their veins (Caffeine replaced their red blood cells, perhaps?) Exhausting every bit of energy their already tired bodies could endure, so that they would be too tired to think of their problems. Or to even feel anything.