Dear family and friends,
This March, I turned 31 years old. I am well and truly in my thirties now. To celebrate I crossed some bucket list items off; I finally went to a nudist beach, skinny-dipped, and had a day out at Luna Park. The first two were very liberating. I’ve always thought nudist beaches would feel over-sexualised but really it was quite the opposite (in my opinion). No one was staring at people, wolf-whistling and making advances on each other. Everyone was respectfully enjoying their space at the beach, just while stark naked.
Luna Park was a hoot. I originally planned to only be there for the morning but soon realised it was much bigger than I had originally thought. I went on the drop ride, followed by the awful 360-spin (awful because I hate thrill-seeking rides). It was when I went on the Rotor ride that things went wrong. This ride spins around so fast that you become stuck to the sides. At the end of the ride, I held my hands over my mouth and waited patiently to run out of the door and spew all over. Unfortunately, a little boy beat me to it, halting me at the steps and I got a small bit of yuck on him. Not my greatest moment. I must remind myself to pack a spew bag (if you have been unlucky enough to have experiences with me vomiting you would understand). The rest of the day was fine, filled with bumper cars and the Ferris wheel. A very special birthday celebration.
March hit a real peak in my fitness journey this year. I have continued training for the 10km run for Neuroblastoma research weekly. I have also attended Retrosweat classes in the city with my pal Irena. Oztag finished up, while we lost the last two games, there was certainly enough adrenaline-pumping drama to make up for it. Our last game saw one of our players concussed and wheeled off to the hospital after knocking her head on the field. Wild. My friends, Helen and Hannah also took me out snorkelling around Clovelly which was just delightful. Sydney truly is the most beautiful state in Australia.
Workwise, we had some wholesome events this past month including Holi: the festival of colours and Harmony Day. For Holi, the children made burfi and sprayed each other’s white shirts with dye. For Harmony Day, we read books about diversity and made a huge family tree with flags from the countries we have all come from. One slip-up this month, saw me directing the children to the front yard when suddenly four of them went haywire and ran away into a separate part of the grounds where I work. I quickly called another staff out before racing after them and picking them up one by one and placing them over the fence. Just when I thought the drama was over, a parent picking up his child left the door open a crack and another child who missed out on running away in the group prior jet out at a sprint with other children screaming, “Go! Go! Go! You can do it!”. Some days in childcare, I think “Why do I do this job” but for the most part, I love it very much.
Movies I watched this month were '65' (the time travel dinosaur movie - excellent), and 'Pearl' (I really liked the stylised aspects of it all). Television series I have been watching are 'NYPD Blue' (I recently found out that David Caruso doesn’t come back in any of the seasons – disappointing), the 'House of Hammer' series (some real red flag flashbacks there) and I finished 'Scrubs' (the last season had a completely different feel). The only book I read this month was ‘The Night Tiger’ by Yangsze Choo. I really liked being able to recognise some of the areas in the book because of my Malaysian experiences in childhood.
Other highlights from March include seeing an amateur production of ‘Newsies’ with my aunt, attending a funeral overlooking the sea, seeing ‘Rent’ at the new Sutherland Theatre, seeing Pentatonix live, forming my biggest trivia team to date, and watching the Survivor finale (George gave it his best shot). I also got my first tattoo!!! Since 18, I've been collecting charms to symbolise each year. Unfortunately, I lost the charm bracelet in Canada and ever since have wanted to tattoo it onto my ankle. Tada!!!
And that’s a wrap... Thanks for reading and following my updates. See you next month,
May