That’s Stella

This is one of my favorite commercials and what makes me love the Qantas brand so much. I know Qantas have been having issues lately, but honestly, there is nothing quite like boarding a Qantas plane when you’re on the other side of the world from Australia, and making that big trip home.

Whilst I admittedly have a love/hate relationship with Perth, being away really makes me appreciate and proud to be Australian.

On Tuesday, before the party, the Qantas childrens choir sang this song at Carnegie Hall. I squirmed in my seat, trying to hold back the tears, but I couldn’t help myself. They really belted out this song and the lyrics couldn’t be any clearer about how I feel about being away from home and my parents and friends, and whether it’s 2 years, or 5 or 10 or 20 years time, it’s going to be great to settle back home in Australia.

I’m always traveling, I love being free,
and so I keep leaving the sun and the sea.
All the sons and daughters spinning ’round the world,
away from their family and friends,
but as the world gets older and colder,
it’s good to know where your journey ends.
Someday we’ll all be together once more,
when all of the ships come back to the shore,
I’ll realise something I’ve always known,
I still call Australia home.

One of the qualities all my closest girl friends have in common is a genuine modesty. Sometimes I am completely taken aback by just how unpretentious they are. I have love/hate feelings when they play down a story or event. Let me explain…

One of my closest girl friends here in NY - let’s call her Samantha - has been seeing this Australian guy. If you’re like me and need a visual description with every story, let me say that Sam is this beautiful and exotic looking African American girl. She’s always dressed really well - a mixture of classy with a bit of edge - 5′7, skinny chick. I did NOT like her on first impressions - I was so thrown off by how reserved she was - but after a few months, we just understood each other.

Anyway, “seeing” this Australian guy probably isn’t explaining it very well. The story is that her Brit friends introduced this Australian guy to her, and she took him around New York for 3 days whilst he was in town, he fell in love with her, but she did NOT feel it, but when he got back to Australia, they called each other every day, and Aussie dude asks Sam to fly over to Australia to see him (paid by him of course) but she says NO. So he tells her he’s going to get a transfer to New York so he can be with her. But she insists he DOES NOT come to NY. He keeps chasing, and she keeps insisting they’re “just friends”.

Last week Sam tells me that she’s going to Los Angeles just for the weekend - but after a hell of a lot of grilling and suspicion from myself, she tells me she’s meeting Aussie in LA. But not just that, but Aussie is FLYING her over. Right.

Now, when Sam got back to New York, we caught up and she tells me Aussie man introduced her to a bunch of Australians in LA. Now before I tell you what I’m about to tell you, can I just get this straight with you and say that when Sam holds back on telling me the whole story, it’s not any sort of dodgy-ness on her part - she is simply the complete opposite of a show off - so completely down to earth it’s ridiculous. I asked her more about these Australians and she continued to tell me they were having dinner in New York this week. I grilled some more, asking what these Aussies did. And that’s when she casually mentions a few names as if she’s reciting to me her Uncles and Aunts names, except instead of Aunty Tina and Uncle Bob, it was Nicole and Eric and Baz. I mean…. WHAT THE FUCK!

If I recall correctly, I think I slapped her and told her off for skimping on details.

Last night we went to a party her Aussie dude was throwing and I met him for the first time. Turns out he’s someone in the public eye in Australia - to be honest, I don’t know of him, but I Googled him when I got home, and let me just say, that when Google can predict your name after typing your first name, well, you’re someone. Olivia, Jimmy, Simon and some other older Aussie entertainers were also there.

Sam messaged me this morning and asked me how Aussie’s manage to drink so much. She also messaged to tell me she was also having dinner with this guy this weekend.

Jealousy is an understatement.

It has been snowing all day. Ack! It’s oh so pretty but such a bitch to get around town, especially since walking is your main mode of transport in this city. This is Sheridan Square in the West Village - a little meeting place just around the corner from my home.

Remember this rejection?

Whilst we obviously did not get off on the right foot with the organizers, turns out they are really great folks and gave us a refund plus asked us to attend an event of our choice for free.

So a few weeks later, my girlfriends and I actually joined in on our first speed dating event. But it wasn’t anything to write home about. It was like Groundhog Day…. Twenty two different “dates” but the same conversation over and over. “What do you do? Is that an English accent I hear? How long have you been here? Where abouts in the city are you? Nice to meet you.” Sure 3 minutes is tough to have a deep and meaningful conversation, but three minutes was also enough time to inflict pain. There was only one guy I thought was OK - he was an indie boy, but actually had a job and worked in media. We hung out after, but there was no sizzle. My girlfriends and I were a bit bummed and actually left the place with a GIRL’s number! (She was this cool chick who also worked in advertising). Gah.

So the deal is, when you leave the event, you go online and make your choices. If you picked Tom, and Tom picked you, it’s a match and you get each other’s emails. If you picked Tom, and Tom was NOT into you, Tom does not know you picked him. It’s a good system.

I picked the indie boy. Only the indie boy. I know I should’ve increased my chances of love and all that jazz by picking more people, but it was not worth it. I mean, I swear I am not that desperate.

Indie boy did NOT pick me - I know this, because after three days, my status on my dating page was “YOU DID NOT MATCH AT THIS EVENT”. It felt like a big fat rejection and fuck you from all 22 guys.

Even though my girlfriend and I swore we wouldn’t do it again, a few of our other girlfriends convinced us to go (plus it was a free event, so no moula was forked out). We had a group of 6 girls, and admittedly it was SO MUCH FUN. Having so many girlfriends around made me relax and adopt a “Don’t give a shit” attitude. Whilst a lot of the guys still asked lame questions like “What do you do?”, I tried to avoid Groundhog Day, and asked random questions like “If you could only hear one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?” or “In your opinion, what is the best Tom Cruise film?”. The cool guys shot back with some killer questions, but the guys that tended to ask about the standard things struggled in their seat and looked like they were going to shit in their pants. aCK..

So my last date was this cool guy- good looking, Orlando Bloom-ish looks, smart, thrill seeker and had lots of energy. I ended up picking him and this guy who put his hand on my leg and looked like John Legend. I was stoked when I got an email notifying me that the thrill seeker picked me! Whoopeee!

I don’t actually expect to hear from him because he is hot and I am not, and I am naturally (in my head) a massive pessimist, but I’ll keep you updated either way!

This whole recession business is making me really anxious. I hear and read a lot of stories about people being laid off which just makes the nervous thoughts in my head increase tenfold. When AMEX laid off 10,000 people, everyone knew someone who had been effected. Just before Christmas, one of the big ad agencies here laid off 30% of their staff - that was around 300 people. It was a big shock, but it didn’t really sink in. The last day before leaving for holiday break, I went to wish my creative director friends Happy Holidays. I walked into their office and all their awards and photos and drawings on their walls were gone. My heart sunk because these guys are my refuge when I’m having a hard day at work. I think they could see it in my eyes, so they were quick to tell me nothing had happened. When I asked why everything was gone, they said they decided to pack up so in case there were lay offs in the new year, it was a quick exit from the office.

sigh.

These guys have been at the agency for 10+ years and for them to have such little faith in keeping their jobs, well it was one nasty reality check and realization that no one was safe.

I spent my holiday break like it was my last days in New York. And whilst that might sound like a good time to appreciate and do things I’ve always wanted to in this city, the fear of leaving this city far exceeded any feelings of good times.

The fear of losing my job. The realization that I hate my job. The process of figuring out how I’m going to get where I want to be career wise in this city. The sadness of leaving my home and friends in this city. And most of all - the fear of returning to a much more mundane life back in Perth if I lost my job and in turn, my visa. Well… it has been weighing on me! I’ve turned into one anxious wreck.

Oh god. Please don’t get me wrong. I can think of a million reasons why Perth is so great and I don’t mean everyone who lives in Perth has a mundane life. I specifically mean MY life in Perth was mundane.

Things are so right here and I am not ready to leave.

I just met my housemates friend who is a clinical psychologist. She’s staying with us for a few days whilst she has job interviews here.
Every time she asked me a question, I would answer and only to be interrupted.

Psych “Which part of Australia are you from?”
Me “Per….”
Psych “My brother in law lives in Sydney”

Psych “Sally said you work in advertising. What’s that like?”
Me “Oh it can be…”
Psych “You must get lots of free products!”

She’s actually really nice but I can’t imagine having to talk out my problems with her. Ha.

I had the best New Years ever! I have a Perth buddy in town - I’ve known him for 20 years. He’s like a “brother from another mother” so it was great to have someone so familiar around. He went on exchange to Germany last year and made a new years resolution last new years eve with his exchange mates to meet up with all of them again in New York in a years time. He’s always been a bit of a ladies man so I was kind of expecting his mates to all be hot European chicks, but instead, I spent my new years with a hot Brad Pittish looking Spaniard, cute/dorky Finnish man and lots of hipster New Yorker boys who were all dazzled with my Aussie accent. Mwahaha!

We were a group of 15 - three of which were girls. I must admit that I’ve always been the type to have more guy friends than girl friends, and when I met the other two girls of our group, I felt somewhat pressured to bond with them or risk looking like the Aussie tart that only talks to boys. We all hate that girl… right? I have to admit I was a little intimidated because they were both gorgeous, but upon finding out they were half Chinese and half Jewish, well, we got along like a house on fire because I love Jews and I’m half Chinese so we’re practically related. Ha! We also shared a love for David Chang, pork, dive bars, Radiohead and pork.

We were initially going to do the Times Square count down, but people not from New York don’t understand what a drama it is. Firstly, you have to get there in the afternoon to even secure a good spot. Once you get there, the police divide the crowd and split the crowd into fenced pens and you have to stick to your pen the whole night. Did I mention you share this penn with 100 other people AND there are no toilets AND there is no food and like I said, you can’t leave your pen. Which means you have to bring your own food, you have to stand in your pen for at least 7 hours till count down AND you can’t pee! AND there is no street drinking, so no CHAMPERS AT COUNTDOWN! WTF! Oh and it was minus 7 fucking degrees on nye!! I don’t know about you, but no alcohol, no peeing, no food and no leaving the penn in minus temperatures sounds like a shit house New Years!

So we spent our New Years in dives bars in the East Village. $10 for 5 shots of your choice at Continental. $2 beers at International. $1 shots at Cheapshots. A big group of 15 bar hopping. Hot girls and guys. It was very drunken and sloppy. I stopped counting after 7 vodka shots, but remember a cute boy always making sure I had a cranberry vodka in hand, and walking down 3rd avenue with my hand in his coat pockets to keep warm and his arm around my waist and eventually kissing. Ahhhh!