1999
This was the last of many things for me and at the end of the year signalled an abrupt turn in career path. But at the start of the year it was business as usual. saw in the new year at a friends place... quite a few of us from church. Although i didn't go to church on a regular basis i still hung with christians quite a bit as the eastside god squad was at its peak right about now. The latest addition to the group was Craig's friend Sajin from tech. however this year would definately see me distance myself from the church even further... def drifting away this year.
I still had my shoulder injury to contend with but for my new hobby windsurfing it wasn't causing too many problems. I would windsurf lots.... it totally took over from surfing and infact i didn't do much surfing or bodyboarding that year. why go all the way out to piha when you can just windsurf down the road? However the conditions that summer were great for surfing and we had one excursion out there where i was none too happy that i wasn't able to surf cos of my shoulder. Temporarily fell out with Andrew, Craig and Sajin cos of this.... prob a few days. But windsurfing was where it was at. A few of my mates were into windsurfing too. Kris from church was quite good at it as was Ryan and Michael. I still keep in contact with Ryan on the odd occasion but Kris and Michael i've sorta lost contact with. But back then i hung out with them more than most of the EGS. But we had plenty of wharfjumping outings too with the EGS. Even Raymond would tag along on the odd occasions.
However there was one other person that i have so far failed to mention in my blogs.... Justin. Justin north would very occasionally hang out with us.... he went to ROL (river of life) church and occasionally would hang with the EGS. Now i would sometimes go out and caddy for Ryan at the musick pt golf course. On May 5th it was just another Sat morning... i was out Caddying for Ryan... unbeknown to me Justin's mum had just experienced something that no mum should ever experience. On Sunday i was reading the bible and Stipe rang. He told me that Justin had died... and was found slumped on his computer by his mum on Sat morning... ie when i was playing golf. Justin was 24 years old when he passed away. This event started a whole emotional rollar coaster for me. i was never really super sad or anything like that... it was just wierd... bloody wierd. At the start i was actually jealous cos Justin had gone to heaven before me and i didn't go to the funeral.
But life went on and i was in the middle of my final year at tech. I was also into windsurfing and used the board as a kayak every now and then. Unfortunately earlier on that year i lost my job at Kiwi Corner... pretty gutted about that.. Craig lost his job there too. So for most of that year i felt the pain of being unemployed.... it hurt... rejection after rejection. But at least i was doing well at tech and the death of Justin did take my mind off my job problems... and unlike last time money at least wasn't an issue as i had saved quite well when i was at stringer and kiwi. I was miserly as ever though with what i bought.... just stayed local for windsurfing... petrol those day was VERY cheap as competition from OZ companies meant great deals for us motorists... it was $6 to get to piha and back in those days.... but my main travels were to tech and back... much closer lol.
Another big change this year was with my car. I gave the mitsi to Josh as mum had got another car and therefore gave me the suzuki swift... a major step up in fuel economy for me and performance. Unfortunately i had to have roofracks on the car (had to anyway for windsurfing... even on da mirage, infact even nowadays even with da sentra i'd have to use roofracks for windsurfing... well i don't cos my jeep has roofracks hahahaha). lol red herring... anyway the swift was kitted out ready for fun on da water..... this would ultimately lead to its demise in 2002. But anyway found out that Josh had given the mitsi away cos he went to get a WOF for it and it failed on 21 things... well he took it to a VTS so no surprises there lol. What a dumb dumb lol.
In 1995 gulf fm went off air... was gutted about this. In 1997 Life FM started up but not much in da way of decent music for crazy mofos like me. That was about to change with the addition of the Hardcore Spunk show (Hardcore, Ska and Punk) on wed nite on Life FM. Yep christian Punk, Hardcore, Ska and even metal was played on this show. It was really cool and helped me get over my personal demons of 1999..... THING.
THING was a generic term invented by me to describe my battle with anxiety disorder that started in July 1999. This mite have been triggered by Justins death cos as with all these sorta mental illnesses it can sometimes sneak up on you. Medically i was suffering from Panic disorder which involved having panik attacks... something that even to this day is a scary experience. I woke up after having a nightmare in July 1999 (on July 23rd to be exact)... and then suddenly i felt faint and was gasping for air. I could feel my pulse racing.... 170, 180 beats a minute. I thought i was having a heart attack but wasn't gonna ring 111 until i felt chest pain... which i never did.. that time anyway. but i was still scared shitless and genuinely thought i was gonna die so i said my death bed prayer and got ready for the changeover (from earth to heaven). anyway it subsided and i was ok... but for the next month i was quite ill due to anxiety. This was all mental illness... there was nothing wrong with my heart at all, no iron deficiency, no blood sugar issues, nothing like that... this was a MENTAL illness... but thats what this thing does... i didn't know what the fuck it was back then so i called it THING. But it did signall a change in eating habits for me.... beforehand i was over 80 kgs... within 2 months i was down to 72kgs... a combination of a changed diet and the increaed metabolism casued by the constant worry... with these illnessnes you can stress off several kilos a week... i looked totally different afterwards.... I allways wanted to have veins showing on my biceps when at da gym (a sure sign that you're lean and mean) but never managed to get them cos too much fat covering them up. Now my veins were showing and i didn't lift a finger to get it.... let alone a dumbell. My freind Tim sed i was in the best shape of my life... and this is someone who allways hassled me for being lazy and fat etc lol.
I def changed my diet... thats what kept it off. I got a job at a call centre in the city that was commision based... i was pretty crap at it and as a result didn't get paid much... but some ppl were making quite a bit of money... there is def money in these sorta jobs if your good at it. but i wasn't and only lasted a couple of weeks.
One day i arrived home from tech to find my mum in agony with someone helping her up... her back specialist was there and mum had pinched some nerve in her back... i wasn't too happy to see this and asked mum if i should stay and help here instead of going to the maccas job interview. But mum sed no go to the interview. I had just finished tech for the year and as a result stood a better change at getting a job. Armed with the ability now to work fulltime i easily got the job at Maccas greenlane working the graveyard shift... which is what i wanted becasue i wanted to PLAY during the day... now i was getting addicted to watersports... a job wasn't gonna get in the way.... of course i still had to sleep... a gr8 balancing act ensued.
This imo was a big turning point in my life... it fully got me away from the church cos it fully got me into watersports..... it would also lead to me getting a whole new group of friends in 2005 and onwards.
But it was not as easy job.... it was very very very hectic... fast paced... faster than anything i'd ever done before and on top of this was still getting used to the wierd hours.... all for the sake of windsurfing and surfing and bodyboarding.... but it was worth it. The days of working the 9-5 grind were OVER... good riddance. Well ok correction i still worked 9-5... 5 in da MORNING hehe. ok it was 10-6 haha.
Everything was getting geared up for the year 2000! a new millenium haha. I saw in this momumential occasion working hehe
I still had my shoulder injury to contend with but for my new hobby windsurfing it wasn't causing too many problems. I would windsurf lots.... it totally took over from surfing and infact i didn't do much surfing or bodyboarding that year. why go all the way out to piha when you can just windsurf down the road? However the conditions that summer were great for surfing and we had one excursion out there where i was none too happy that i wasn't able to surf cos of my shoulder. Temporarily fell out with Andrew, Craig and Sajin cos of this.... prob a few days. But windsurfing was where it was at. A few of my mates were into windsurfing too. Kris from church was quite good at it as was Ryan and Michael. I still keep in contact with Ryan on the odd occasion but Kris and Michael i've sorta lost contact with. But back then i hung out with them more than most of the EGS. But we had plenty of wharfjumping outings too with the EGS. Even Raymond would tag along on the odd occasions.
However there was one other person that i have so far failed to mention in my blogs.... Justin. Justin north would very occasionally hang out with us.... he went to ROL (river of life) church and occasionally would hang with the EGS. Now i would sometimes go out and caddy for Ryan at the musick pt golf course. On May 5th it was just another Sat morning... i was out Caddying for Ryan... unbeknown to me Justin's mum had just experienced something that no mum should ever experience. On Sunday i was reading the bible and Stipe rang. He told me that Justin had died... and was found slumped on his computer by his mum on Sat morning... ie when i was playing golf. Justin was 24 years old when he passed away. This event started a whole emotional rollar coaster for me. i was never really super sad or anything like that... it was just wierd... bloody wierd. At the start i was actually jealous cos Justin had gone to heaven before me and i didn't go to the funeral.
But life went on and i was in the middle of my final year at tech. I was also into windsurfing and used the board as a kayak every now and then. Unfortunately earlier on that year i lost my job at Kiwi Corner... pretty gutted about that.. Craig lost his job there too. So for most of that year i felt the pain of being unemployed.... it hurt... rejection after rejection. But at least i was doing well at tech and the death of Justin did take my mind off my job problems... and unlike last time money at least wasn't an issue as i had saved quite well when i was at stringer and kiwi. I was miserly as ever though with what i bought.... just stayed local for windsurfing... petrol those day was VERY cheap as competition from OZ companies meant great deals for us motorists... it was $6 to get to piha and back in those days.... but my main travels were to tech and back... much closer lol.
Another big change this year was with my car. I gave the mitsi to Josh as mum had got another car and therefore gave me the suzuki swift... a major step up in fuel economy for me and performance. Unfortunately i had to have roofracks on the car (had to anyway for windsurfing... even on da mirage, infact even nowadays even with da sentra i'd have to use roofracks for windsurfing... well i don't cos my jeep has roofracks hahahaha). lol red herring... anyway the swift was kitted out ready for fun on da water..... this would ultimately lead to its demise in 2002. But anyway found out that Josh had given the mitsi away cos he went to get a WOF for it and it failed on 21 things... well he took it to a VTS so no surprises there lol. What a dumb dumb lol.
In 1995 gulf fm went off air... was gutted about this. In 1997 Life FM started up but not much in da way of decent music for crazy mofos like me. That was about to change with the addition of the Hardcore Spunk show (Hardcore, Ska and Punk) on wed nite on Life FM. Yep christian Punk, Hardcore, Ska and even metal was played on this show. It was really cool and helped me get over my personal demons of 1999..... THING.
THING was a generic term invented by me to describe my battle with anxiety disorder that started in July 1999. This mite have been triggered by Justins death cos as with all these sorta mental illnesses it can sometimes sneak up on you. Medically i was suffering from Panic disorder which involved having panik attacks... something that even to this day is a scary experience. I woke up after having a nightmare in July 1999 (on July 23rd to be exact)... and then suddenly i felt faint and was gasping for air. I could feel my pulse racing.... 170, 180 beats a minute. I thought i was having a heart attack but wasn't gonna ring 111 until i felt chest pain... which i never did.. that time anyway. but i was still scared shitless and genuinely thought i was gonna die so i said my death bed prayer and got ready for the changeover (from earth to heaven). anyway it subsided and i was ok... but for the next month i was quite ill due to anxiety. This was all mental illness... there was nothing wrong with my heart at all, no iron deficiency, no blood sugar issues, nothing like that... this was a MENTAL illness... but thats what this thing does... i didn't know what the fuck it was back then so i called it THING. But it did signall a change in eating habits for me.... beforehand i was over 80 kgs... within 2 months i was down to 72kgs... a combination of a changed diet and the increaed metabolism casued by the constant worry... with these illnessnes you can stress off several kilos a week... i looked totally different afterwards.... I allways wanted to have veins showing on my biceps when at da gym (a sure sign that you're lean and mean) but never managed to get them cos too much fat covering them up. Now my veins were showing and i didn't lift a finger to get it.... let alone a dumbell. My freind Tim sed i was in the best shape of my life... and this is someone who allways hassled me for being lazy and fat etc lol.
I def changed my diet... thats what kept it off. I got a job at a call centre in the city that was commision based... i was pretty crap at it and as a result didn't get paid much... but some ppl were making quite a bit of money... there is def money in these sorta jobs if your good at it. but i wasn't and only lasted a couple of weeks.
One day i arrived home from tech to find my mum in agony with someone helping her up... her back specialist was there and mum had pinched some nerve in her back... i wasn't too happy to see this and asked mum if i should stay and help here instead of going to the maccas job interview. But mum sed no go to the interview. I had just finished tech for the year and as a result stood a better change at getting a job. Armed with the ability now to work fulltime i easily got the job at Maccas greenlane working the graveyard shift... which is what i wanted becasue i wanted to PLAY during the day... now i was getting addicted to watersports... a job wasn't gonna get in the way.... of course i still had to sleep... a gr8 balancing act ensued.
This imo was a big turning point in my life... it fully got me away from the church cos it fully got me into watersports..... it would also lead to me getting a whole new group of friends in 2005 and onwards.
But it was not as easy job.... it was very very very hectic... fast paced... faster than anything i'd ever done before and on top of this was still getting used to the wierd hours.... all for the sake of windsurfing and surfing and bodyboarding.... but it was worth it. The days of working the 9-5 grind were OVER... good riddance. Well ok correction i still worked 9-5... 5 in da MORNING hehe. ok it was 10-6 haha.
Everything was getting geared up for the year 2000! a new millenium haha. I saw in this momumential occasion working hehe
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