They Say Time Heals All.....

This is going to be the toughest, hardest blog post to write out of all past and future ones. I'm going to share with everyone about my mum's battle with cancer and how I was affected after her passing.

When you are young and growing up, you always see your parents as invincible, nothing can stop them, and they will always be around forever. I was no different, I always thought mum would always be around, to look after me, through thick and thin, sadly, it wasn't to be.

When I was 14, mum was diagnosed with the big C, cancer. Now I don't remember much during the start of this ordeal, but I do remember when she told me. She told me at the kitchen table around dinner time, for her it must of been the hardest thing to do, to tell your children you don't know how much longer you are going to be around. My reaction, well, I didn't know how to react. I did not know much about cancer, and even at 14, I still believed she couldn't leave me.

We were told she still had many years left in her with treatment, so she underwent treatment for it. I remember one day being down at the oval with a mate, just chilling, and we had a little talk about it and we heard of them curing cancer within 2 years or so, and I felt hope for mum as the doctors said she would live for longer.

Things took a turn for the worst, and mum wasn't responding and was getting worst with times, and them years were suddenly cut back to 6 months. 2 or 3 days later, an ambulance was called to our house at 3am and one of the drivers, Alister (who was one of the drivers who delivered me) made a small joke which I won't ever forget. As they were taking her down the hallway, he said in just a calm, soothing voice "Well Merry, you aren't talking much" and if you ever met my mum, you would know she was quite the chatter. Now Alister was being offensive, or mean, he was trying to lighten the mood of a very terrifying situation. Then after his joke, he then said the most devastating thing a child could hear "You better say your goodbyes to mum now"

After she was rushed of to Corowa hospital, dad put us to bed and told us we will see her in the morning.

In the morning we went to Corowa to see mum, and she was not in a good way. I don't remember much in the hospital, but I do remember giving mum my final goodbye kiss, telling her I love her and how I'm going to miss her. I then stood there, and my mum peacefully drifted off.

In a way, it was nice to see her go peacefully, surround by family and her best friend, and sadly two members of the family weren't able to be there, but we all knew they were there in spirit, and mum knew it too.

After we got home, I did not how to feel. All I could do is go over to our park, and attempt to shoot some hoops. However, I just couldn't concentrate, and ended up kicking the ball away in anger.

Dad offered us kids to stay home and not worry about school, but I told him I wanted to go and be with my friends. So the morning after mum passed away, I woke up for school, however, it was the last thing on my mind, so I stayed home.

A few days later we had mum's funeral, and all I could remember is seeing the hertz take mum away. At 15 years old, it isn't the easiest thing to watch. The whole town and them some showed up for the funeral, and it was only a testament to how much she was loved and respected in the community, and all I wanted to do during the funeral was scream at the top of lungs so she would hear "All these people are here for you mum"


I don't believe in God, or heaven, or hell, but for some reason when I think about mum, I don't know, I think she is somewhere peaceful, looking down on us, and telling everyone around her "That's my son!"

During the rest of high school, it wasn't the easiest time, as I was very up-and-down, one day I could be happy and carefree, the next 3 days I wouldn't talk to anyone. I was forced to see the school councilor, which made things worst when only 5 months after mum's passing she said "It's time to move on and get over it" It's not the most comforting thing, let me tell you.

It's been over 6 years since she passed away, and in the those 6 years, mum physically missed two weddings, uni graduations, high school graduations and several smaller milestones, but we all know spiritually she was there, with bells on, telling everyone, "That's my boy".

They say time heals all, well, 6 years and counting and I still miss her like crazy, I think about her all the time, and when birthdays and Christmas' roll around, it gets particularly hard.

I have a lot of happy memories with my mum, and I also have that memory of her being rushed out of home at 3am, and the memory of her passing away. 6 years, and it hasn't gotten any easier, and I don't expect it to in the future.

I'm sorry, I don't know what to even write now. I guess I just wish I could just pick up the phone and call mum, just to hear her voice once more, and to tell her that I still love her and miss her and want her to come home.

Mum, if you finally learnt how to use a computer for something else other than solitaire, and you managed to find this blog up there, which I assume someone found for you, I just want to say, I love you and miss you.

Worst Morning In History

Back in my Melbourne days, I use to go to the Eagle Bar on a Thursday night, where I would party the night away. Now the next morning would be hell, especially when I had to go to Centrelink that morning. One fateful morning, I experienced something that I will never wish upon anybody, not even Oprah....

The Thursday night was standard, go to the Eagle Bar with my mate, get drunk, and get home around 2-3am. I always had a good time at this bar, made a couple friends due to this location that sells beverages. After returning home, I had a snack and a couple glasses of water , the usual routine, then stumbled up to bed and fell on the mattress to sleep it off.

I awoke to a startling noise, at 7am! It seems our house alarm was set off with no sign of robbers, so for 4 minutes we were kept awake to the shrieking noise of the alarm. The alarm stopped, and the house went back to bed, then a few minutes later, it started again. My housemate tried fixing it again, she did this while I was laying in bed ready to hit the Z's again. Once the noise stopped, I went to close my eyes, only for the alarm to re-return!!

This went on for at least an hour, hour and half! The reason it was going off was any movement down stair would trigger the alarm, so everyone was sent upstairs for a couple hours, then we tackled the problem once we had a decent sleep.

So there was my worst morning experience, it was terrible. I think I cried a bit during the ordeal as all I wanted to do was sleep! It wasn't much to ask, but thankfully my mate eventually worked out how to turn that alarm off, so we never experienced it again, and I pray I will never have to....


From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times

April 22nd, 1988

What I am about to share with you, I am not entirely sure what is true, but this is the story of my birth, from which my mother use to tell me. I remember like it was yesterday....

The date was the 22nd of April, in 1988. My mother, believe it or not, was pregnant with me. She was taken to hospital so I could pop out, but I decided to stay in there, because I like chillin' out. So after my mum returned home, I then thought, "Ay, now would be a good time to see what all the fuss is about" so an ambulance was rushed out to rush my mum back into hospital.

I was so excited, I was about to see the big world, in fact, I was so excited I couldn't hold it in anymore, I just had to come out. Realising this, the ambulance pulled over on the side of the road, on a "can-be-busy-at-times-but-on-a-rare-occasion-it-actually-is" highway. The ambulance driver delivered my mum her 5th child, and I was presented to the world.

You might think, "Wow, what an exciting story, you will cherish that!" If only, for you see, that was only the beginning of the longest 12 months of my life, and my family's life. After reaching Corowa via ambulance, the doctors noticed something was not right about me, I appear to be of blue colour, so for precaution they took me to the Albury hospital. From there the doctors ordered in a helicopter to fly me to Melbourne, as it appears something was terribly wrong with me.

I don't remember much from this time, only a few hazing memories but... Well, to be honest, I don't remember any of it, but my mum told me after they assessed me, I went straight under the knife, I needed to have open heart surgery in order to save my life.

My mum use to tell me I was born with my veins around the wrong way, a hole in the heart and some closed heart arteries, which restricted the amount of blood flow around my body. So with these conditions, operations were needed quickly. After the operation, the next 6 months I basically lived at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, under going treatments and check-ups. Then one day the doctors told my mum the worst thing a parent could hear....

"Take your son home and love him as much as you can, as he won't make it to age 1"

I was given only one year to live by the doctors, and well, we all know how it all turned out, as I am here typing this story to you. If my heart condition wasn't enough, they decided to give me a wobbly spine as well, also known as scoliosis, which didn't really affected me.

Most of my childhood, up to about 14, I would have to go to Melbourne twice a year for a check-up, to make sure things are okay, and when I was 14, I had surgery to open up an artery using a balloon. Now you could imagine how protective a mother would be with her child with my condition, so I was shielded off from the world for a long time, but our trips to Melbourne were fun, which involved going to the zoo, the markets and my favourite, riding the tram!

According to my mum, I also made the record books at the hospital, so that's pretty bad-ass. But not as bad-ass as my scar which was created by my baby-time. I have a scar starting from the top of my chest, right down to my bellybutton, proof that they sliced me right open to operate.

So there is the story of my birth, the way my mum use to tell me, and how much I remembered from the story. 22 years old isn't a bad effort when you are only given a year to live, and now I only need to visit the doctors once a year, just for check-ups and what-not. Hope you enjoy this, one day I will tell the story of my name and how I came about my footy team, which involves the mentioned events.


From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times

Job Searching Tips

After sharing the memory of landing that Safeway job, I thought I'd share some tips on job hunting. While I am no expert on the matter, I feel that I could offer some advice from 6 months of job hunting.

A few of these tips I did not do myself during my two main stages of job hunting (well I am in the mist of job hunting at the moment but I'm not at a danger point), but I think if I did use them tips I may have landed a job earlier.

#01 - Make finding a job, your job.

Pretty simple, if you are unemployed with no other commitments like study or caring for someone, make it a full-time job. Wake up, have a shower, have breakfast, then once 9 o'clock clicks over, clock on and start looking. I feel if I had done this properly, 7-8 hours a day, 5 days a week, I would have easily found a job much sooner.

#02 - Where To Search

This is a toughie, as a lot of my searching was done via internet, which was silly. There are a few mediums out there, while internet is a major one, there is local newspapers, shop windows (which is actually a big one) and connections. When my friend said to walk down the street with resumes looking for ads in shop windows, I thought he was dumb. But one day I took his advice, well actually, he pretty much dragged me down a street with him, it turns out a lot of shops have their ads in their windows and no where else.

#03 - Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

I did this a couple times where I applied for a job, thinking I would get it straight away, and stopped looking, or I got a interview and stopped looking before I was offered the job (B T W, I didn't get them jobs). What I effectively did was cut down my momentum, and missed out on other potential jobs for a job which I could have got. It is best to just keep going, keep going, even when you have 4 interviews, just keep going. You don't know for sure if anyone is going to give you job, so you don't quit until you land a job.

#04 - Take A Lower Job

If it comes down to it, take the plunge and accept a much lower job. I was getting desperate I was applying for McDonald's and KFCs thinking that if a 16 year old girl could get a job, so could I. Even if you take the low-level job, least you have some income while you search for a higher job.

#05 - Make A "To-Do" List

I do these lists all the time, in fact on one of my To-Do list, well a couple, I wrote "Make a To-Do List on....." But relating it to job searching, the night before, or during the day, make a list of things to do the following day, such as "Hand your resume into Frank at G&C Accountants" or "Look up Woolworth jobs" or "Ring Jennifer Bickmore regarding application" These lists keep your mind alert, and it also allows you to see what you have to do in a day, and at the end, see how much you actually did.

#06 - Do Big Things Early In The Day

What I mean by this is, in the morning, til about 2 in the afternoon, use this time to tackle the big job hunting. Which is don't spend 4 hours browsing seek for jobs, rather grab your resume, change into some presentable clothes and hit the town. No, don't go party, go into shops and business' and hand in your resume, ask for potential jobs, or hand in resumes personally to places offering jobs. Then once your energy is drained towards the end of the day, use it to circle ads in the newspaper, or look on seek or gumtree.

#07 - Let People Know You Are Searching

A lot of the time it's not what you know, but who you know. Sometimes your friends could possibly know of a job opening which you did not know about, or maybe they could talk to their boss about giving you a job.

#08 - Read Job Ads Carefully

I found this out the hard way. If you are looking for a steady income, be weary of jobs with OTE $80-100k or even OTE $30,000. I'm not if OTE means Opportunity To Earn or On Track Earnings, but basically these jobs are sale commission based. And if a job sounds too good to be true, 98% of the time, it's fake, or a scam.


That's about all I can think of at the moment, and if I com across more, I will blog it, rest assure. But a few of these tips helped me, find jobs (even the crummy ones) and now that I have wrote this out, I might put some of these to practice to find another job. At the moment I am packing shelves at a night time, but now I feel I want find a better job or either greatly reduce my hours there, or cut it out completely. I will do some updates on how it is travelling, and see if I am using the above 8 tips. Also google is your friend if you want more tips for job searching, the above was just of the top of my head, so do some googling and I'm sure you will find hundreds. And also, the above tips are for very generic job hunting, if you are looking for a $100k+ CEO Mining Job or something, I'm not too sure how helpful it would be to use the tips. Anyway that will do for now.


From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times

The Pursuit Of Happyness

This movie starring Will Smith, who is without a doubt my favourite actor, was the movie I could most relate to last year, and at the start of this year. For those who have not watched it, I highly recommend you do.

The story involves Chris Garnar working as a sales rep for a bone density scanner company, trying to support his wife and son (who is played by his real life son). After struggling to make sales and wanting a better life, he applies for a internship at Dean Witters, a stoke broker company. His wife then walks out on him, however Chris was able to hold onto his son. He was arrested for unpaid parking tickets, and had the spend the night in jail, which was the night before his interview.

The interview is probably my most favourite part, where he attends the interview in trackpants and a dirty paint-stained singlet, whilst covered in paint himself. So how many of you guys ever went to a interview in a singlet and trackies and managed to get the job? I know I'd have no short at it, but Chris pulled it off.

"What would you say Chris if a guy came into a interview with no shirt on, and I hired him! What would you say?"

"He must of had on some really nice pants"

SCORE!!

Not to bore you with the rest of the movie cos I want you to see it, he ends up only having $26 in his bank account, then he ends up getting the job (sorry if I spoiled it for you but you know he gets the job right from the start) and his life is changed. His pursuit for happiness is finally full filled now.

The movie was based on the true story of Chris Garnar who ended up forming his own company and is worth millions of dollars. Not bad for a guy who was basically broke living on the subway, public toilets and shelter homes.

So why did I talk briefly about the movie? Well basically because when I first moved to Melbourne, I was sort of like Chris, where I was in a sales job, not making sales, I was close to being evicted and I had very little money in my bank, some times having negative dollars in my account. Then Safeway came along, hired me and then that was a stepping stone to actually being able to live in Melbourne.

I mean sure I didn't spend a night at a public toilet, or had a kid to worry about, but I still related. So some nights where I couldn't sleep because I had no clue where my next $5 was going to come from, and if I had enough money for food next week, or rent, I would watch the movie, sitting, hoping, dreaming, I would get that turnaround in my life.

When I got the email from Safeway offering me a position, I re-read the email, making sure what I was reading was in fact true. Inside it felt amazing, knowing that the bank would be of my back, I wouldn't have to keep borrowing money of friends, and that I'd finally have money to eat. I was finally, happy!


From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times

Best Jobs In The World

Not sure who is aware of it, but there was a competition running last year or so-ish for the "Best Job In The World" which was a marketer for a tourist spot in Queensland. After some job ideas popping into my head, I have compiled a list of my "Best Jobs In The World"

(In no particular order)

1/ Nightclub Promoter - So apparently these guys and girls get paid to party! All they have to do is bring people in to the nightclub, and they get paid. Usually it is commission pay, based on the number of people come through to the door to your awesome promoting.

2/ Sea World/Movie World Mascot - What could be better? Not only are you at the coolest theme parks, but, you get to dress up in a cool costume!! If I had the job of dressing up as, say, Taz, I would wake up everyday, get in that devil's costume, do some cool tornado looking spins, and spin my way right through the gates to Movie World. You have to think, what kind of discounts do employees get? Must be sweet!

3/ AFL Mascot - Yes another mascot, only this time you get to go to all the football games (for free I'm only assuming) and functions and have everyone love you. Well, except for people who do not like your team, but still.

4/ Golf Caddy - You are probably think, "What, carrying around a golf bag all day, you crazy?" No! You get to drive a golf buggy around all day, and if you are caddying Tiger Woods or Greg Norman, I'm sure they tip you pretty well, for one days caddying, you could make like $50 or something, pretty sweet if you tell me.

5/ Radio Host - As in Hamish & Andy. I done a small blog on my plan to get rid of Andy, and in the blog I mentioned how sweet their job is. Some small things that come to mind is their Caravan of Courage trips, their trip to Japan, trip to Tasmania on a old boat, and all their ghosting, cab driving and put-pocketing! Defs one of the best jobs in the world.

6/ Toy Tester - How awesome would it be to go to work each day and play with toys? I believe on a scale of 1-10, it would be Frickin' Awesome! Much rather be playing with a Elmo doll or something than stacking shelves.

7/ A Puppeteer - Thinking of Elmo, it would be cool to have like your own TV show, or performance with cool puppets.

8/ Red Bull Spokesperson - The cool thing about the job would be the endless supply of Red Bull.

9/ Surfing Instructor - I think it would be sweet to be on the beach all summer, teaching hot babes how to surf. Well, I need to know how to surf myself, but if I stay just one lesson in front of my pupils, it would be swell (yes pun intended).

10/ Founder of a Massive Religion Following - The only good thing about the job would be the massive income it could provide. Small calculation, you get 18 million followers for your "church", print of a "bible" and sell it to them for $25, that's $450,000,000. Plus if they have to pay an annual membership of $100 a year, well, you do the maths there!

11/ Events Coordinator - What I mean by this is, who ever thinks of cool events and markets them like music festivals, sporting events, social events. Like if someone came up to me and said, "Anthony, I need you to market my event, it's a music festival with tennis being played whilst on a big a$$ boat" I would jump to the idea and market the hell out of it!

So there you have it, my 10 "Best Jobs In The World" Who knows, maybe some day I will land that best job, or 4 of them, but all I know for certain is, who ever currently holds any of the jobs, I am majorly jealous.

From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times

I'm Sorry Russell....

I wish to formally apologise to Russell,


Russell, I apologise for trying to convince you to that the right side was the right answer. Where in fact you were right in saying the bracing on the left side was correct. I am sorry.

Sincerely Yours,

Anthony


From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times

The Meals That Saved Me

Whilst in Melbourne, the first 4 months was quite a tight budget, my budget was tighter than a(I'll let you finish that off), anyway, it was tight. If it wasn't for the following meal, I wouldn't of survived the first few months. The meal was delicious, easy to cook and the main thing, CHEAP! Anyway, I'm sure you are all curious to know what it was, so here is the recipe.

Pasta for the Poor Man


Ingredients

Homebrand Pasta, 500g, 59c (I know the pic says 63c, but in-store it was around 59c, from memory)

Can of Chopped Tomatoes from Aldi, 79c

Can of Tomato Soup from Aldi, 79c

Beef Mince, $5-6 (even better if you got it from Safeway at a "reduced to clear" super cheap)

1 Onion, 70c-90c

This makes 3 full meals

Total Cost - $9.07 (highest possible cost)

Now divide that by 3, it works out to be $3.02 per meal. That is quite effective when your weekly income is $0.

Now when you earn a little bit more money, the more glamorous the pasta can get, such as garlic and, yeah, other stuff.

Another great budget meal, which was a staple while I was working because it was cheap and easy to cook. I would eat 3 or 4 of these meals a week, which was handy during dinner break at work, or when I could not be bothered cooking.

Frozen Homebrand Lasagne

Total cost, $2.52 (or buy it one at a time in cash, so its $2.50, by doing this I saved 8c a week). Just whip it in the microwave for 10minutes, go off and do other stuff such as toiletry actions, come back, let it cool for a couple minutes and you are sweet to go. (The pic says $2.71, but that must be for online services, trust me, it's $2.52 in-store)

Probably my most favourite dinner plus other meals, which only occurred once, but I will be looking to repeat soon, was the pavlova I bought. Priced around $9 or something, and the box said served 12, but I dropped the 2. This allowed me to have 3-4 "meals", which totalled 3 odd bucks per serve. In case you are wondering, I did not add anything to the pav, no fruit salad, no cream, nothing. Just straight, raw pav!

Best dinner I ever had! I can not begin to explain how much I am looking forward to re-doing this, I just want to go out and buy one now. But I know it has to be for a special occasion. Perhaps when I eventually move back out, this can be my first night's dinner... Here's hoping....

From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times

No I Will Not Cook You A Chicken at 11:30pm

During my time working in the deli at Safeway, I encountered many annoying, rude and dumb customers. This short blog is the story of a woman wanting a roast chicken at 11:30pm.

This is at 11:30pm
Customer - Do you have anymore roast chickens?

Me - No sorry, we sold out at 10:30, sorry.

Customer - Can you cook me one now?

Me - [with a dumbfounded look] Uhh it takes over an hour to cook, plus I've....

Customer - [interrupting me] It's okay, I can come back in an hour

Me - [with a even more dumbfounded look] The store closes in half-an-hour

Customer - [storms off mumbling under her breath]

Me - [shakes head in disbelief and resumes cleaning]


So basically I had a woman wanting me to cook her a roast chicken, at 11:30, when the store closes at 12am. God she was a dumb b!tch! Not to mention, I already had cleaned the oven, and there was no way, NO WAY, i was going to re-clean it for a stupid customer, no matter how much they complained.


From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times