Category Archives: Personal

Sick season

I feel like I’ve been away for a long time but I know it’s been just a week. I was sick with bronchitis and in bed and had no energy to write. I came back to work on Monday after a week and I am feeling great.

I think I haven’t been very sick for a while now (touch wood), I think the last one was the one after my visit from USA (my scare thinking it as swine flu) but this time it was really bad. It started with flu and cough last weekend and it kept on getting worse with fever and aches and pains.

I have to admit I become really needy when I am sick. I want someone to be around me all the time and poor AS had his hands full looking after me. He was making sure I was resting and at the same time giving me medicine and food.

The first few days, I didn’t go to the doctor but took cold and flu medication and hoped things would go away but after 3 days in bed I finally I decided to go to the doctor. He gave me the news that I have bronchitis and I needed antibiotics. It was a bit of relief because now I knew I could be better in a few days. However, it was not as easy as I thought.

I had a hard time sleeping at nights as my body temperature went up at times and then I was all sweaty next. My body was really weak with regular coughing. After going through this for a few days, I couldn’t help but cry. Poor AS had no idea what to do, as he was tired and sleep deprived as well looking after of me.

I cried because I was sick of being sick, I cried because I wanted to be normal soon as the headache and pain was too much. I wanted to have a good night’s sleep and wake up fresh. Now if I think about it, it feels so silly but at that time I was not thinking straight.

AS would hold me in his arms and tell me that he was there for me always and I will be fine soon. He was trying to make me smile with jokes. Eventually he was successful in calming me down. I am so glad he was with me most of the time. He took a few days off work as well to make sure I was not left alone.

Being so far away from family, you wish that you had them around you when you are sick and down. I was missing my mum a lot during the whole time I was in bed sick. But I am so grateful that AS was there for me. I couldn’t imagine being sick and alone, no one to look after me and no one to talk to.

AS turned into a great chef for the whole time as well and cooked me awesome chicken soup, jaulo (the mixture of lentils and rice cooked in a pressure cooker and mainly served to sick people) for the first few days. When I was bit better he also made me Kale chips which were a great alternative for snacks. Also he prepared kale and chickpeas salad with roast chicken as well as delicious fried rice.

kale chips Kale Salad

I feel ashamed to admit that even though AS was doing his best making great food I was carving for junk food so a few days we had takeaway for dinner.

After this experience, I fully understand when they say, “Health is wealth”. Fingers crossed, I will never be sick again. Being back at work feels so go and I am happy I am getting better, not 100% yet but will get there soon.

Looks like it’s not only me who was sick; for the last few weeks, most of my friends have been sick. My poor little nephew has been sick for a while and now at work a few of my colleagues are off sick as well. So I am calling this season – sick season.

As I keep on saying every time, I hate winter and I now have one more reason to do so. I can’t wait for the next 3 more months to be over so I can relax and enjoy the outdoors again. Till then keep warm and be safe.

Take care ,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

When are you thinking of moving to Nepal again permanently?

In one of my post, one of the fellow blogger, asked me the question “When are you thinking of moving to Nepal again permanently? “Many people have asked me this question before and I too have asked myself the same question repeatedly.

If the question was “Are you thinking of moving to Nepal again permanently?” my answers will be definitely YES but I am not sure when.

Initially, I wanted to go there before I turned 40 because I was thinking I will have my life sorted out by then and will have good income to go and live in Nepal with my family. When I used to answer like that lots of people around me told me that things would change in the future and it seems they might have been right because now I am not sure when I will be going and I am sure having a baby and owning a house definitely makes a big difference.

Still, I want to retire there but it is not going to be anytime soon.

I left Nepal initially for study, but it has been more than a decade and in that time I have learned a lot, seen a lot and have done extensive traveling. I have seen many places, tasted different food, met different people and seen different life-styles. However, I remain proud of my roots and I visit Nepal as often as I can. I doubt that that would ever change.

Every time I plan a trip to Nepal, I feel happy thinking of the traditional food, friends to meet, movies to watch and travel.

The first time I visited Nepal my friends were busy and so I really did not get much time to spend with them. Of course, they had their life in Nepal and they couldn’t just drop everything for me just because I was on holiday. I got sick with diarrhoea and vomiting. Three months in Nepal went by so quickly just going to relatives’ homes and a bit of travel.

Since them every time I have been there, the situation was similar or worse because most of my friends were married by then and some even had kids which meant they had lots of responsibilities in their day-to-day life to make time to meet me or entertainment me.

Then I got married and things changed completely because now I had two families to spend time with so I had even less free time for other stuffs like catching up with friends. Every time I visit Nepal, the reality of living in Nepal forever seems harder and harder as things are completely different from what I imagine in my head.

Now we have a mortgage as well which means we are not going anywhere until it is all paid off. So I am sure I will not be moving back to Nepal in my 40s for sure but I am still hoping to retire there. When that will really happen, only time will tell but I definitely want to.

I still have a dream of building our own all Nepali style house with carved wooden doors and windows. I still want a garden with Dhunge Dhara (stone water tap) and lovely view. I still want to wake up to the sound of temple bells . I still want to live in a place where I am not asked “Where are you from?” every day. I still want our kids to know our culture and traditions and be proud of it.

Hope this dream will come true one day.

Please share your story about your decisions of making another country your permanent home. What caused your decision and How did your decision affect you?

Take care ,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

I am a student again

After debating with myself for a while, I enrolled for a course. It has been ages since I finished university so I was a bit hesitant, as I knew it is a big responsibility to start studying again but I am so glad I did. I know now I need to adjust to my new routine and the demands of coursework but I should be OK.

I enrolled for Project Management as a part time student and I think it will help me in my current job as well as further my career in the future. This week was my first class and it was amazing to be in a classroom again for a whole day, learning new thing and talking about assignments. We had a workshop for a few hours and it was so surreal to be in a group of people I just met and to do a project plan and talk about different aspects. We already got our first assignment and it is due in a few weeks :).

The teacher we have seems very interesting and very dedicated so it should be a great learning experience. I am sure I will have some story in the coming months as the course runs for a year. Till then wish me luck. I am going back to my first assignment now. 🙂

Take care everyone ,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Exercise makes you feel better

Today’s post is dedicated to everyone who has been procrastinating their exercise especially to those in the Southern hemispheres where it has been raining for weeks now and is so cold that it is easy to find an excuse not to exercise.

I have a close colleague/friend at work with who I go out for lunch or a walk frequently. For more than 6 months now, I have been nagging her to exercise with me during our lunch breaks. As I mentioned in my post before, I have been exercising regularly during lunch breaks now which means I see her less often and I miss our catch-ups and chats.

I knew she was not a runner but she loves swimming so I was asking her to come with me to swim a few days a week since summer started last year.

She had many excuses like. “I will be too tired after an exercise”, “Our lunch breaks are not long enough”, “I don’t have a proper swimwear”, “I promise I will come soon, not today” and many more. Finally, to my surprise when I came back from my holiday, she told me she got her swimsuit and was ready to go with me. I was happy that my constant nagging finally paid off.

So today, we went for a swim together. We had a nice chat on the way there and back. We swam in the indoor heated pool so she was fine. It was quite relaxing to be away from work and enjoying the lunch break. We had enough time to have a shower and be back at our desks in an hour. We both enjoyed it.

Birthday (12)

We decided that we will go twice a week together and I was happy with that. I came to my desk, had my lunch and continued with my work. Just now, she came to my desk and asked what I am doing during lunch tomorrow. She felt so relax after the swim today that she wants to do it more often now.

I am so glad to hear that from her. I am glad I kept pushing her until she went with me and now she wants to continue swimming regularly. But unfortunately I have already planned a lunch date with one of my friends tomorrow but I am going swimming with her the day after. She is now happy to go as many days as possible.

I am sharing this here because some of you might be in the same boat planning to workout but need that extra push and I am, virtually, pushing you to get up and exercise and keep yourself healthy. Without a healthy body, nothing else matter.

Positive thinking

After the whinge on my post the day before, I did manage to go for a run though. The weather was still gloomy but it wasn’t raining so I went. I have to say I had a good run and only for last 5 minutes did it start sprinkling. The run sure made the rest of my day better.

I think generally I am a positive person and since AS came into my life, he has helped me to be even better. I really like the way he thinks most of the time and am glad to have his guidance when I am in confusion.

But I also learn one thing in life that it is so easy to be negative as positiveness need effort. I am saying it because I experienced that recently.

I was ignoring the negatives of certain situation for a while but then one day I couldn’t anymore which opened the Pandora’s Box. One thing led to another and I was drowning in negative feelings. Even AS’s best effort couldn’t save me this time as I was not able to let go. The ending was not good at all as it happened to be a waste of my time and energy in useless thoughts of ifs and what ifs. So I told myself that I will never do that again. I know I am saying never right now and it might happen in the future again but I am promising that at least I will try my best not to dwell in the past and think about things I can’t control and be sad about it.

Being positive or negative is like an addiction. When you have negative thoughts, you can go so deep into the negative attitude that it can make you really depressed. And that is the path I don’t want to go on if I can control it. In the same way positiveness is also addictive as well. When you are in a positive mood, it will take you deeper into a positive frame of mind that you are happy to let go, forgive and forget a lot.

Of course, I am not superhuman so I definitely will have different frames of mind every day but I’m trying to talk about the positive things and consciously trying my best to have positive attitude.

Therefore, if anyone has problems with me, that is his or her problem and I can’t do anything about it. I am not going to guess and make myself stressed thinking about why? If someone doesn’t want to see me and meet me, that is their loss as I will fill that time with others who want to see me. I have an amazing husband, supporting family and good job and it should keep me going. And I have this great place to vent my frustration with amazing support from each one of you that I think my life can’t be any better 🙂

With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.”

Take care, everyone. Sending the positive vibe to each and every one out there…

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO