When I first moved to Australia I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a place I had visited several times but never lived in. My only feeling about it was 'hot.' The first year was very up and down - lots of both. Getting used to a new city, starting all over again with friendships and getting to know people, missing my family and home. Then I lost my job. That was really hard - i wanted to go home immediately but I was part way through a study semester and I at least wanted to see out the term. I was out of work for about 3 months total - it felt like eternity. I was so stressed, all the time.
Always online, looking for jobs, going to interviews when I could get them, worrying about how long my savings were going to last and how to live minimally and not spend any money where I didn't absolutely have to. My friends were really good and let me move in with them and work in exchange for some of my rent, which helped a lot. One of them managed to get me a few days at her work as a casual employee which helped a lot. I finally got a casual part time job which cost a lot of money to get into as I had to pay for an ID card, then I was only there before I got offered a full time job in a call centre - which was such a relief because I'd been trying to get call centre work but nobody would hire me as I had no experience.
I've been at the job about 5 weeks now and its going good so far, training was excellent. Taking calls and multitasking at the same time is a bit stressful as I'm still getting used to all the procedures, but the money is quite good and I'm just really glad I can start paying back the debts I accumulated when I was out of work all that time. Hopefully things will keep improving from here.
