Category Archives: Personal

Hoina, timi haru duii jana ko job nai ghumna ho ki ke ho? I envy…

Posted on February 12, 2012 | 10 comments

That was the comment one of our friends left on Facebook in one of our albums. It translates to “Is travelling around the job for the both of you?  I envy…”

Normally whenever we go out, I try to capture the day in photos. I believe they are the best memories I can have (I love taking photos). Normally, I upload those photos in Facebook especially for my family and AS’s family to see. One of the regular people on our Facebook is my MIL and my dad. They just love to look at our photos which assure them that we are happy and healthy in Australia. Also those photos are viewed by only a selected group of my and AS’s friends.

Anyway the above comments make me wonder if Facebook really portrays real life ? Because I believe most of us post only happy photos or events of our life in Facebook which doesn’t mean that we don’t have any sad or bad days. But still when people look at our Facebook, especially with the new timeline features, all they see is our holidays pics, going out pics and happy pics which makes them think that our life is all happiness and joy.

If you follow my posts, you know that I normally try to do something on the weekends so I have lots of photos of weekends in my Facebook. So if you view my timeline, it looks like all I have been doing in my life is travelling. So I do understand why our friend left that comment. I have had similar comments before.

“You are so lucky. You always seem to have time for holidays and that’s how ones life should be.”

“I want to holiday with you, take me in your suitcase.”

I even have people asking for holiday advice and suggestions when they are planning their holidays.

I don’t mind these comments and I am happy to help anyone with ideas when I can.

But then there are these people who think my life is all gold and glitters. That is what I don’t like. Like everyone around me, I work very hard and try to save money to fulfil my dream which is to travel and see the world. Most of my friends have different dreams than I have i.e. all Australians dream about owning their own house and they are working towards it.

Anyway back to Facebook, I have read lots of surveys that say that people are depressed more these days looking at the happy life of their friends and family in Facebook. Also here is an article  on how other people’s happy statues are affecting people and making them miserable.

I find it a bit stupid, since you should know better if you are a Facebook user. Do you really share all the misery in Facebook? (I know there are some exceptions). If your answer is NO then you should never be upset with what you read and see in Facebook. Everyone has their share of happiness and sadness since no one’s life is perfect. That is what you have to always remember . People are always living their life as they want for a long time, it is just that Facebook is making it easier to share and show the photos of your special moments. For some reason if it does bother you, the best thing to do is to stop looking at that particular person’s profile. There are lots of settings in Facebook which will allow you to hide the profile and activity of a person you don’t want to know about.

I, for one am an active user of Facebook and post photos there but I have never been depressed looking at the photos of my friends and family. I actually get inspired by them, for example I have wanted to go Sky diving for a long time but haven’t booked yet. Now I can see so many of my friends are doing it and looking at those photos really helped me to make my decision on doing it for sure, and soon. Also I know lots of new information from these photos like people getting married and having babies so I am happy to see all these.

And it is so true “Absurd as it may sound, the friends whom you envy may be envying you just as much!”

The study by Cyber psychology, Behavior and Social Networking found that people who spent less time socializing with friends in cyberspace and more time socializing with them in real life were less likely to report they were unhappy. So go out and have real good time with your real friends.

If you have any story to share regarding how Facebook affects people or you, please let me know.

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How embarrassing!

Posted on February 3, 2012 | 10 comments

Something really embarrassing and funny happened this morning and it made me laugh so hard. I though of sharing that with you all. 

This morning one of my colleagues who live in the same building as I do called me and wished me ‘Happy Birthday’. I thought he was joking and told him that it was not my birthday. As you know, my birthday was on 28 October so it is nowhere near that right now. Then he said, it must have been yesterday or the day before so ‘Happy belated Birthday’.  I was not sure why he was insisting that it was my birthday so I had to tell him that my birthday was 3 months ago.

There was a bit of silence on the phone as I think he was a bit embarrassed that he got it all wrong. Then I asked him what made him think that it was my birthday. He said last night when he went to the shop across our apartment and while returning, he saw the sign that said happy Birthday M in our apartment window. He assumed, the birthday must have been a few days ago as the sign was still there so thought of calling me and wishing a Happy birthday (really nice of him). When I heard that I couldn’t stop laughing but at the same time I was really embarrassed. 

The thing is when I had my birthday party, 3 months ago, my husband decided to do this big decoration on our window. It was really nice of him as I had Halloween theme party and it looked amazing. He put lots of work to execute the design and decoration. I thinking I kept the decorations for a week before taking them out. The only thing I couldn’t take out was my birthday banner as it was too high up the window. I have asked him several times to take that out but for some reason, he hasn’t.  Also it hasn’t occurred to me lately, to remove it, even though I see it every day. I guess my eyes just filter it when I am home. 

I had no idea that, people could see the banner from the street in the evening when we have our lights on. Now I am thinking how many of our neighbour has seen that banner and wondered what is going on with a birthday celebration for 3 months. How embarrassing! 

His call made my morning but I have to go home tonight and make sure that banner gets off from the window. I think 3 months is a bit too long to have the banner hanging around isn’t it?

Just a day remaining before the weekend so enjoy everyone!!!

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2011 in retrospect

Posted on January 6, 2012 | 10 comments

I was just thinking how quickly a year goes by. Actually I can’t even recall a decade sometimes. It feels like just yesterday that I left Nepal to come to Australia and that was more than a decade ago. I still remember the time in Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathmandu where I stood for the last time with my friends and family before I took a flight to come to this new place. It seems funny when I  think of it now that I had 40+ people there to bid me farewell. I had my parents, my brother, my aunties, my uncles, my cousins ( with the little ones crying ), my friends from school (among them was AS, my husband who had no idea at that time that he would marry me one day) and a few other friends . If I think about it now I feel happy that there were so many nice people in my life who cared about me and came to see me off. Time just flies and life goes by. I just want to take a moment and reflect on my year 2011 today.

The year started with AS and me being together for our first New Year celebration. It was really a wonderful experience to have him in my life, living together and planning our life together. I am so sure now that was what I was missing before he came to my life again. I just loved the feeling of togetherness and unconditional love we have for each other. Even though we have lots of adjustments to make in our individual lives to be with each other, it all seemed like worthy sacrifice when I look at it from this point of view.

I think the first half of my year I was just busy planning for the next stage of our life, our wedding. There were so many ups and downs in the planning. There were stages where I was so frustrated with people that I thought the wedding wasn’t happening as I wanted it to happen. And there were those highs when we talked to our parents about the wedding and saw all their excitement in the preparation of the wedding. Even thinking about it now has my head spinning. All I was thinking about was my dresses, wedding venues, photographer, decorations, food and the list keeps growing longer. It was basically a never-ending list of things to do which only ended after the wedding.  I think all is well if it ends well. So this year I became MRS from MISS.

Also our honeymoon to Vietnam was the highlight of this year. It was a great place to just relax and see beautiful places.  Wonderful memories are flooding my brain now 🙂 . I think June 2011 was the best time of my life so far and will always be in my memory as one of the most important time of my life.

I also got a new family this year i.e. my in-laws. It is really nice to have more people who care about you and look after you. I am really happy that my MIL, FIL and BILs are great people who have accepted me in their home as their own. I feel lucky that we get along well together and now I have a new family who will have a big part in my future. I have lots of cousins from his family side who called me sister-in-law (I feel so old when they call me that but I need to get used to it 🙂 )

Last year, one of my cousins got married and one of my good friends got married too. Both ceremonies took place in Nepal so I missed it but I am really happy to see them happily married to the love of their lives.

Two of my cousins had babies this year. Both had a baby boy and they are growing up so fast. They are in the US so I haven’t had a chance to meet them yet but I just love all their photos in Facebook. Hope I get to meet them soon.

Also two of my friends had December babies, a boy and a girl as I wrote in a post. They are just cute, adorable, beautiful babies.

I learnt to cook in 2011. Last year me and AS started living together on our own so I didn’t have much choice but to learn how to cook a few simple meals as surviving on take away was impossible.  I suprised myself that I can cook some good meals and follow recipes to have something decent on the plate. I should probably say that I became a responsible woman from a headstrong girl 🙂

Also in 2011, for the first time in our lives, both of us fasted together for a Puja ceremony in Nepal before our wedding. I was so glad that AS joined the bandwagon of fasting at my house where my mum had organised a big Puja to bless our wedding. It was kind of nice to see him support me in the traditional aspect of our life.

I managed to tick a few items off my bucket list as well. We travelled to New Zealand, Vietnam and Vanuatu so my list of placed to visit have shrunk a bit. I can cross abseiling and black water rafting off my list as well.

How can I forget to mention that in 2011 I started blogging too?  Nepaliaustralian was born in September 2011 and has been growing since then. I think it is one of the good decisions I ever made. It has given me a platform to share my ideas, thoughts and rant sometimes about the issues and topics that has affected my life. I also got to meet really nice people who share similar opinions and I got to read their blogs filled with creative ideas. Thank you everyone for making me feel welcome in this blogosphere.  Also thank you to those who awarded me various awards . I am honoured to receive 7 awards last year.

There were a few bad news last year. My aunty was diagnosed with breast cancer which is a first in both sides of the family. It was kind of shock to everyone but she is getting a treatment right now and it looks good and she is recovering well. Just want her to be normal soon.

My best friend’s dad passed away and I feel bad that I was not with her when she needed me. I am glad she had her family and her fiancé with her at that time. Hope to meet her soon.

It seems like so much has happened but at the same time I feel that everything happened yesterday. I hope 2012 has lots of good thing in store for me and I want to live this year happily without worrying about stuff that I have no control over (like I always do).

Wishing all of you a great 2012 and hope this year all your wishes come true. Be happy everyone!!!

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Happy Birthday AS!

Posted on December 30, 2011 | 9 comments

It was AS’s birthday on December 28. As we were on holiday, I didn’t know what to do for his birthday. Before we left for the  holiday, I had contacted the resort we were staying in Vanuatu and asked them if they could bake a cake for me. I was happy when they emailed me back confirming that they could. I tried my best to make it a secret until his birthday. It was really hard to get away from him to talk to the staff there. I also hid his card and gifts in my suitcase. I am so glad he didn’t find them until his birthday.

On the morning of the 28th, I couldn’t sleep as there were thousands of things in my mind. I woke up at 5 am and started planning for his surprise birthday. As we had booked to go for Abseiling at 9am, I needed to execute my plan before 9 am. So I went to talk to the staff to plan everything while AS was still in bed.

As normal, we went to the resort’s restaurant for breakfast. He ordered a big breakfast and I ordered a continental breakfast with fruits. I had instructed the staff to get the cake before we had our breakfast. We were seated by the pool and there were a few  other tables with holiday makers having their breakfast.

I was facing the walk way and AS has his back to it. So when the waiter came with the cake, he didn’t see it at first. I started singing the “Happy Birthday” song and AS thought it was someone else’s birthday so he started singing as well before he turned around and saw the cake and realised that the cake was for him. In the mean time everyone else at the other tables started singing Happy Birthday for him.

I really liked the surprised look on his face after seeing the cake. It was his favourite flavour, double chocolate mud cake. I couldn’t get one any smaller but I was really glad to see it turn out so good. It was just perfect. Then he made a wish and cut the cake. One of the guests was really nice and offered to take some photos of the both of us.

Then it was time to open his gifts. I got him a card, an android tablet and a UFC trainer game for his XBOX. I knew he wanted them so I am glad that he liked them all. He had this big grin on his face that made me really happy.

Then we had our breakfast and went for Abseiling (I will write about this later when I am back in Sydney). It was one of the most fun things we did in Vanuatu.

We came back to the resort to change and were off to the Melanesian dinner (local Vanuatu style dinner with cultural dance show). We really enjoyed the food and dance.

It was a perfect celebration for AS. I was really happy that he enjoyed his day so much.

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Posted in General, Personal

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Dilemma

Posted on December 15, 2011 | 14 comments

I have a friend from school who used to be very close to me. We used to talk and share our dreams together. We used to have sleepover and share a close bond with each other’s families too. 

When I came to Australia we used to talk often and kept in touch. Our friendship was really strong and my parents used to invite her for all the festivals even I was not in Nepal. I was there to support her and she was there to support me even when we were miles apart. 

5 years ago she decided to come to Australia. I helped her in every possible way. She got a visa to come here and stayed with me. I was really happy to have my friend close to me again. It was going well until one day I found out that she was dating my friend, who I had introduced to her. I was a bit hurt as I would have wanted to hear that information from her but I heard it from a third-party. I didn’t say anything to her. I didn’t ask any questions but waited for her to be ready to talk to me. 

From that time on even as we lived together, we hardly saw each other and had really no conversation with each other. I tried a few times to catch up with her but she seemed too busy with her boyfriend and his family. 

Six months went by and we went from good friends to just room mates. Then she told me that she was going to marry her boyfriend. I was really happy for them as I knew both of them well. I did my best to help her with her wedding but whatever I did didn’t mend the distance between us. 

After the wedding she moved in with her new husband and we didn’t really keep in touch. I called her up a couple of times but I got the feeling that she didn’t want to talk so I stopped calling. I have no idea what happened between us but in this unknown way I lost a friend. 

We still meet during functions organised by common friends but we just say hi and that is all. Last weekend when I went to one of the gatherings, one of my girlfriends informed me that she is expecting a baby. I was so happy to hear the news but I don’t know what I can do. I thought of calling her or writing her an email but I am scared. 

What if she doesn’t response to my email?  or What if the phone conversation becomes awkward? are all the questions that are stopping me from reaching out to her.

I am not even sure she wants me to be a part of her life again. 

Just confused on what I can do next. 

Should I leave things as it is? Or Should I reach out to her?

Can anyone help? If you have been in a similar situation, what have you done? 

P.S: I am writing my version of story as her version can be very different from this. 

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Posted in Emotions, Friends

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