Belated 3 month update

[loopylisa]

Hi all,

As promised this is my 3 month update. I landed on the 12 September, so I think that makes it a little over 4 months, but hey who's counting?(that is, apart from me who is counting down the days until I can go and see my family back in the UK). I have decided that I want to go back and visit in December for a Christmas break as I want my partner, whom has never been to the UK to meet my family and I will have a brand new nephew in April I want to meet too.

As I think I mentioned in my one month update things were very hard when I moved here as I was sick and broke and it put a fair bit of stress on my relatively new relationship with my Aussie partner. It was about 6 weeks until I got a job, it was actually one I had been offered on a casual basis about a week or so after I landed but it just took a while for this to translate into a contract and a start date, I think this was a logistic HR type thing, and nothing to do with my colleagues, they seem great. My contract has been extended to January 2013, which makes me feel more secure as initially it was only a 3 month contract and it was making me anxious. It was a rather unenjoyable commute to work up Marion road in peak traffic most days, which for a non peak traffic of 20 mins journey was taking 35-45 minutes on average and closer to an hour on a really bad day. Our house did not have any air-con and was very good at retaining the heat and once December hit I was desperate to move out, and slightly sleep deprived.

We ended up breaking our lease, and enduring a fair bit of stress with Simply energy disconnecting our power on our old house a week early, forcing us to move in the dark, spoiling our contents of a fridge and freezer and having to hire a carpet cleaner who had a generator on his truck( as we couldn't have any power to clean the house).

All in all, it has been a pretty stressful few months, financial worries and having to deal with centrelink(this was not a nice experience at all and I at times felt humiliated and degraded). Settling into a routine, missing my friends, my family, having my first ever Christmas away from my family. My boyfriends family are great, and they are lovely, but sometimes no one cooks a roast like your own mum does. I will fight you to the death screaming that my mum cooks the best Christmas meal on the planet!

Moving house was quite stressful too, I have never moved a whole house before. In fact I have never owned a TV or a sofa of my own(albeit shared with my partner) before. Everything has been my parents, given to me to take to Uni or at there house, or moved into furnished houses. Turns out moving a whole house across Adelaide in the dark is quite stressful :S. The new house is a dream, however and the new sofa arrived on my birthday, which was pretty cool.

So all in all, it's been a turbulent few months, been a fair few lows(illness, financial, days I burst into tears with stress and missing my family) and the highs( lovely beach walks with my partner, warm birthday/nye, new house with dishwasher and a/c, new sofa and TV, bonding with the kitty).

Reflecting back on it in this way I think is a useful experience as it makes me realise how much I have achieved and to try and be a little bit proud of myself when the whole experience gets a little bit too much. Hope everyone else is managing to recognise how much we have achieved in this experience

Best wishes

Aussie Loopy

[thebacons]

Sorry to hear about the hard times but glad things are looking up for you . Keep telling yourself what's worthwhile is never usually easy. Here's to a great second quarter.

Chris.

[scooterdan]

Yeah...pretty tough few months you had!!

Glad its getting better now....

Dan!

[Kris]

You're amazing. You did all that and come out on the other end. Good for you. Just reading the bit about no airconditioning and being sleep deprived reminded me of the ole days where we had no aircon and my job had no aircon either - it was awful. I couldn't live without airconditioning now. Actually no one could live with me, with no airconditioning.....

[likesshopping]

Nice to hear things are looking up.

Totally agree about mums roast!!! lol




Sarahx

[snifter]

Ooops missed this when you posted. My bad.

Glad to hear things are looking up for you now. Those first few months can often be hard work and you got through them :) And sounds like the new house is better and things are on the up.

There will be some tough days still I am sure, but you are through some of the most testing times and hopefully you'll be able to cope with any bumps in the road in the future.

[Lazy Cow]

Reflecting back on it in this way I think is a useful experience as it makes me realise how much I have achieved and to try and be a little bit proud of myself when the whole experience gets a little bit too much. Hope everyone else is managing to recognise how much we have achieved in this experience

They say, "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and whilst it totally sucks whilst you are going through the 'whatever', I think it's usually true!

I think you have achieved a great deat and it's very cool that a) you've done it without the support group you would have had in the UK and b) your relationship has coped with all you've had thrown at you.

So, yay for you, Loopy! Thanks for sharing and may you have many more highs than lows :)

LC

[loopylisa]

Hey! Thanks for all your kind words and support. Still kinda crazy at my end, had my first aussie birthday, my partner was 30 and still got v day to go. Once Feb is over hope things settle down a bit. But it has been a nice few weeks of eating and drinking. Nom nom

[Ktee]

Thanks for the update Lisa, good on you for sticking it out, there are some who would have been on the next flight home.