You are You

I am writing this from recent events and experiences (what happens nearly every day and yesterday’s Mardi Gras event). This is mostly to make myself feel better and let everything off my chest.

I don’t have a very high self-esteem. I rarely see my father as he is either out to work or sleeping when I am up; he works from 3am to 4pm and sleeps at 6pm. My mother doesn’t work. She has very high expectations for my brother and I, since she was a quite successful person when she was a student in China.

As the oldest child in the family, most of the expectations are forced onto me. And as the oldest child, mistakes and experiments will be made since my parents are not familiar with the Australian education system. I’m cool with that. But sometimes things can get quite overwhelming.

In NSW, there are a few exams which students can take to put themselves “on a different level to other students their age”. Two of the main exams are the Opportunity Class exams and the Selective High School exams. As a child from a very traditional family, I took them both.

It Doesn’t Seem Fair

Since I have graduated from High School I was required to apply for the Youth Allowance which will financially help me since I will continue to study full time.

The application process was long and tedious as it involved a lot of terms that I was not familiar with. The whole application, even the parts my parents were supposed to do themselves, were done by me because “I’m the eldest child and I’m supposed to help the whole family”. Anyways, there was this one section that required me to tell them if I’m living away from my family and if I’m paying rent. I obviously said `no’ since I still live with my parents and I don’t work.

Flash forward to today, I had to go back to Centrelink where I had to fill out a form that also contributes to a section in my Youth Allowance application. My mum tried to make me change the information I gave about my rent and who I’m living with, so that they would think that I’m paying rent and nothing living with my parents. Apparently if it was filled out this way the government would give me money (not entirely sure what it involves).