Daily Prompt – Make It Anywhere

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” goes the famous song about New York City. Is there a place — a city, a school, a company — about which you think (or thought) the same? Tell us why, and if you ever tried to prove that claim.

I had that thought when I moved to Melbourne when I was 19.

Daily Prompt – Trio No. 3

Today you can write about anything, in whatever genre or form, but your post must mention a dark night, your fridge, and tears (of joy or sadness; your call). Feel free to switch one ingredient if you have to (or revisit one from previous trio prompts).

 

Jessica couldn’t contain her excitement when she returned home, ‘Guess what, babe? You and I are going on a trip…. TO NEW YORK CITAAAAY!‘

Jessica’s girlfriend, Lauren didn’t believe her. ‘Oh really?’, she said, raising an eyebrow.

Daily Prompt – Wrong Turns

When was the last time you got lost? Was it an enjoyable experience, or a stressful one? Tell us all about it.

It’s rare for me to get lost. I’m always the navigator.

1 July – 10th Anniversary

This summer is BlogHer’s 10th anniversary! Tell us something YOU have been doing for ten straight years.

 

I actually think I’ve been at my current job for ten years… Which is surprising and kind of sad… It just goes to show how complacent I’ve become in terms of employment. I haven’t even been going to the gym for 10yrs.

May 16 – Favourite Restaurant

Tell us about your favourite restaurant.

Oh easy, it’s a sushi train place in the city.

Most of the time whenever Hulk and I want to go on a man date, we’ll always try and get a  booking there first, before we try anything else. It’s our favourite place, and we’ve been going there for a number of years.

It’s a tiny little place, that can only hold maybe thirty people. It’s quite narrow and quite cramped, and every time we’ve been there, it’s always been packed, sometimes to the point where you simply can’t book a table, or have to wait anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour or sometimes longer.

The best seats in the house are all situated around the actual sushi train, because it makes it so much easier to access the food as it goes around, meaning that you always get the first / best opportunity to get the food as soon as it’s plated, so it’s fresh and if it’s cooked, it’s still quite hot.

I think our favourite seats are right across from the kitchen / preparation area – we both love watching them work in the kitchen, preparing the dishes with such precision and finesse. As we’re both big ‘foodies’, we love to see all the work that goes in behind the scenes to preparing dishes. Most people wouldn’t like to have those kind of seats, perhaps because they don’t necessarily think about (or care about) the work that goes into the dish, they just want it to look good and taste incredible.

Daily Prompt – Saturday Night

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT! What’s your favorite way to spend Saturday night?

Given that Hulk and I both work two jobs, Friday night is the only night that we don’t work, so that’s usually either our night at home so we can veg-out, or we’ll have a low-key date night and head off to the movies.

Seeing as how Hulk works on Sunday morning, it makes it a bit harder for us to do anything on a Saturday night, however in saying that, the last couple of weeks have seen us going out with a couple of friends to a certain nightclub on a Saturday night to see some international performers… that then turns into our friends coming back to our place for ice-cream and / or nacho’s and a very, very late night. Then on Sunday morning, we have a big breakfast for the four of us, and Sunday becomes a bit of a write-off.

Sometimes we’ll have a proper date night, where we’ll get a little bit dressed up, and head to our favourite sushi place in the city, and then go and see a show somewhere in the city, and that’s always something nice for us to do, but because we’re a couple of nanna’s, all we really want to do is just get home, put on our PJ’s and have a cuppa.

Sometimes all I want to do on saturday night is just curl up on the couch in my pyjamas and play video games. I think if I was to find myself being single, then that’s probably what I would be spending my time doing… isolated and completely engrossed in one of my PS3 games like Tomb Raider or The Last Of Us.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/saturday-night/

Daily Prompt – Take a Chance on Me

What’s the biggest chance you ever took? Did it work out? Do tell!

I think that one of the biggest chances I took was moving out of home when I was 19.

Living in a country town, there’s only so much that you can achieve, and there’s a very limited future for you… well, unless you want to work on a farm, and even then, that’s not a certainty. A lot of people that I went to school with still live in that town, and have just settled into whatever life brought them, whereas I was determined to get out of there and do something with my life.

I knew that I would either move to Sydney or Melbourne, and the school that I got into was in Melbourne. It was such an incredibly daunting choice to make, and something that terrified me, but also excited me at the same time. It’s a decision that I certainly do not regret whatsoever. It’s allowed me to grow as a person and experience so much that I would have never been able to had I stayed in the country.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/take-a-chance-on-me/

Mar 21: Selfish or Selfless?

Do you do more for yourself or for others?

 
I would say that I have an equal balance of both. Yes I do a lot of things for myself – I certainly buy myself a lot of stuff, but I’m also always willing to help out others if and when they need me.

It’s something that I’ve been aware of for many, many years. And it’s certainly changed significantly over those years.

When I was younger, I was constantly putting myself second, and everybody else was first. I was an incredibly selfless individual. I was always off doing something for somebody else, and completely disregarding whatever I had to do for myself – usually resulting in something not getting done, or getting it done quite late.

I often referred to it as ‘Country-boy Syndrome’. I would put everybody elses needs before mine, because that’s how I grew up as a kid in the country. Back then, being selfish was unheard of, and you always go out of your way to help other people – that’s one of the qualities that makes a decent human being.

When I moved to Melbourne, I brought this philosophy with me. Being the naive country kid, most of the time I didn’t realise that others were taking advantage of my good, generous nature. And then as time passed, I began to cotton on to what was happening around me. Yes it was disappointing, because people were always asking for my help, but on the very rare occasions where I would ask them for their help, they were all conveniently busy – even when I asked them weeks in advance.

The final straw was when I was in my early twenties. I’d spent the last couple of years being messed around by various housemates; I’d spent so much time being messed around by my ‘ex’ (G), and something inside of me snapped. I’d had enough, and things were going to change.

It was time to start putting ME first for a change, and when I did, everybody took note. I learnt how to say no to people. I learnt how to actually do things that I wanted to do for a change. I was also working full-time and earning my own money, so I was able to buy things for myself, which I’d never really been able to do before – financial independence!!

Since then, I’ve grown and matured, and seen people for who and what they really are. Unfortunately, as a result, I have a less-than-positive view on society in general. People label me as being negative, or a pessimist, and make it sound like a really bad thing, but I prefer to call it being a realist. I always started out with a view of life being sunshine, puppies and rainbows, but then over time I realised that it was all bullshit, and I was completely oblivious to what was really going on. Now that I am, my views have changed. I see people for what they really are. I’m not saying that everybody is like that, but generally speaking, people in society are extremely selfish, and will do whatever it takes to get something that they want. People are ruthless. People are not afraid to throw you under the bus if it will allow them to achieve something.

Yes, there are still people who see the world as sunshine, puppies and rainbows, and, well, good for them. They choose to see the ‘good’ in everything, however, I just see it as being ignorant. That’s not how society is. That’s not how people operate.

Daily Prompt: We Built This City

What do you love most about the city / town / place that you live in? What do you like the least about it? If you were mayor, what would be the most important problem you’d tackle? How would you tackle it?

As somebody who grew up in a very, very small farming town, the thought of going to a big city was both scary and exciting. When I decided to move to Melbourne, I was so full of anxiety, but I saw it as a ‘challenge’ and it’s a decision I’ve never regretted.

I love living in Melbourne – I just love Melbourne. I find it’s just one of those cities that, generally, is very easy going. People tend to be quite nice and friendly; the city is laid out quite well, so everything is easy to get to; the public transport is generally quite good – it could be improved quite significantly, but overall it does a solid job.

Melbourne is a city of multiculturalism, fashion, food and coffee. Especially coffee!! Melburnians LOVE their coffee and will have no hesitation if they think it tastes like mud. It has also previously been voted as the World’s Most Liveable City! It also hosts some of the biggest international events such as the Grand Prix, Melbourne Cup and the Spring Racing Carnival, Melbourne Fashion Week. Plus, with a constant array of galleries, theatre, musicals, and international music artists touring, there is always something to do in Melbourne!! Oh, and we have now joined the elite list of cities to take part in the Real Housewives franchise (Suck it, Sydney!!).

The only downfall about Melbourne is the weather. We have shit weather 90% of the time. If it’s not the standard grey-overcast-cold weather, it’s four seasons in a day. If you’re planning on visiting, ALWAYS prepare for cold and rain at some point during your stay. It’s inevitable!!

If I was the Mayor of the city and hypothetically had unlimited funds to tackle the city’s biggest problems, the first thing I would do is dramatically increase the public transport infrastructure. There’s so much room for improvement, and during peak times, it’s terribly overcrowded, and there’s nothing worse than running late to work, getting to the train station and then spending 20mins waiting to get on a train, because all the trains coming through are jam-packed.

I’d also create a public transport link to the airport. Places like Sydney and Brisbane have a rail-link connecting the airport to the city, and Melbourne certainly needs one. We have a bus shuttle service, but you can only catch that from the city. I’d want there to be a rail option for those who live in the suburbs.

Which brings me to my next point – cross-suburban rail network. I’d further our current government’s plans to develop a rail network to link suburban lines, and completely bypassing the need to go via the city. As it stands, commuters need to travel into the city, in order to change trains and travel out again if they wish to get to another station on a different train line. A cross-network ‘bypass’ would resolve that issue… however, it would require significant research into how many users this would affect.

…not to mention millions (if not billions) of dollars.
 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/09/prompt-built-city/