Me

Well it’s me…..yeah me….its Saturday night and I have just put the kids in their beds and now I thought I should blog in response to my wife last post.

She said to me it’s so sad not happy at all. But it’s the truth and that is awesome and our kids are going to get and insight into thier mum that they never see or really understand until they are much, much older.

So kids here’s dad story, I’m not going to lie, make myself look cool, etc etc.  It’s how I saw the world and me in it.

So my youngest memories were of my father, sometimes I wonder if they are memories of my own or I have just heard the story so many times I have made up bits in pieces in my head. So I’m standing in my bedroom with my older brother and I can hear yelling, I’m scared were standing in the doorway to our bedroom and we are listening to this yelling getting louder and louder, I hid behind my older brother and then he hides behind me and so on so on. My oldest sister comes sprinting down the hallway like and Olympic sprinter and right behind her is my father.

(I say my father because I was his only child, my oldest sisters Jodie, Amanda and brother had the same father but they treated me like a real brother sister should.)

He is chasing her and as he rounds the corner he throws a porcelain breakfast bowl at her, she got away she made it around the next corner, however my bedroom was at the end of that hallway and the bowl hit the wall or something close to me and it hit my foot and cut me open.

For years I wondered why my big brother would hid behind me the smallest it didn’t seem right he should be protecting me…..as I got older I remembered my Dad taking me to an Asian doctor, might have been the first Asian I have ever seen. Anyway he stitched me up and I remember how worried my father was for hurting me…..so I see things differently now I know my brother knew my dad would never intentionally hurt me his only child but him on the other hand he would hurt Kenneth and he did, he hurt them and my mother on many occasion.

My mother left him and she moved a lot to find from him, she was and until the day she died was still afraid of that man.

My father kidnapped me when I was living in this house he took me for a week from my mother and when she final got me back some time later I remember being put onto the backseat of her friends car and being told to lay down and be still. They placed a blanket over me and told me not to move, I lay under that blanket as she pulled out of the driving way I know now the lights and the cars were police.

After that memory it’s all fun, like really fun the way a childhood is supposed to be, playing in a dead-end street with softball, baseball, riding bikes a hanging out with the neighbours and everyone knew everyone it was awesome and my Dad was gone I don’t know when my mother got away from him but it was for the best. So this is taking too long to write so I want to move on, so he is a quick reference we moved a lot but this time in this house without my father was the best childhood ever.

I spent nearly every school holiday up north with my nana and poppa. Every year I would be up there and my cousins would come up for a week or so and we would get to play in the biggest playground ever THE BUSH. We would pick blackberries constantly and have blackberries crumbles for desert and play war games and go hunting the home made bow and arrows or spears. Life was great.

Then mum meet Barry, I’m not going to go into this part of things but let’s skip  to some nice memories, We lived in New Lynn, West Auckland for a while the neighbourhood was poor but everyone was really friendly even with all sorts of different cultures and nationalities. We lived across the road from the New Lynn skateboard park, many goods time here riding my bike and the neighbourhood skates teaching me how to drop in and lending me their real skateboards not cheap K-Mart once that I got for Christmas. (Even those cheap skateboard gave me weeks  of fun.) Neighbours were friendly in those days kids, like your mother I had a nice old person living next door he used to give me one can of ice cold sweeps lemonade every week for me helping him with the lawns. I hope when you get to that ages you will have these memories of nice neighbours and a bunch of local kids you can play with were everybody looks out for the kids

Let’s skip a few years and we are living my north in an aunties house which is just done the road from my Nana and Poppa. This house was over 100 years old it was meaaaaan you all have been there but it has been modified so much now nothing is left of the original structure really. It’s now Uncle Keri’s place….the sick looking man with the baby lambs when we lived in zeaaa land. Do you even remember this when you read this now your all older.

When I was 10 we moved back down to Auckland and I went to my last and final year at primary school. Intermediate school was all fun and I wasn’t the most popular but I was liked I believe.  High school was pretty cool it had lots of fun with Uncle Ewen there that’s when dad and uncle Ewen became friends. I was again not the most popular but I was known my than most and on one occasion me an uncle Ewen were the talk of the school, but that’s not for you to know now maybe when you read this you can ask me about it and I promise I’ll explain.

 I have never been the smartest and brightest kid but not stupid either, I could have been very well educated and been a smart as anyone else if not smarter, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be, this is the one regret I have is I should of paid more attention in class and I should of finished school no matter what was going on at home and around me. PLEASE STAY IN SCHOOL KIDS…life after school has been hard for me I was 15 years old when I left school and left the security of my mother.

I had up’s and down friends and foes, lovers and my share of haters, I was drinking and smoking and partying like life didn’t matter. It was a sad time for me and it lasted to long, while friends finished school and started working I was still lost and drinking and smoking. Had many a friends, and had a lot of good times, but there was always something that was missing and I always had a sadness inside me.

When I tried 18 years old I had a voice message on my phone saying….

(Hi Zane this is your father I’m now living back in New Zealand and I want to meet you)

I meet him and his new family, this freaks me out when I think about it, I meet his wife a Vietnamese women and my half Vietnamese brother Joshua. We talk on occasions but he started putting too much pressure on me to meet his side of the family. On one Fathers Days I didn’t ring him coz I was mad…I felt bad the next day so I tried to call, his number was disconnected I never heard from him again.

 A few years passed and I thought all sorts of reason why he would do this after so long. Was he mad at me for avoiding him, was if disappointed in who I turned out to be? I guess I’ll never know.

A few more years pass and I done a couple of computer course with Uncle Adam was I was a bum and had nothing better to do. Do this was the best choice I had made in a long time, it ignited my passion for computers I ended up teaching the class in the first course I did everyone came to me instead of the tutor and I loved it. I felt like I was helping doing something useful for once. I was still shy and not exactly experience in a lot of things like job interview or things like that so it took me a while to find my first real job. After a few nerve racking experiences and a interview I landed my first real job, and I turn out to be really good at it and I loved it…a helpdesk for TeleTech NZ ,  outsourced helpdesk for Telecom NZ ( Xtra ) It’s NZ biggest ISP…well I did really well there and picked the technology and troubleshooting like a duck to water….

At this point in my life I didn’t know what you were I wanted to be. But I knew who I didn’t want to be and this is what motivates me. My father …my brother’s choices have made him the man he didn’t want to be my father. (Less violent but still broken none the less.) This is my motivation I do not want to be my father or my brother………. Side-tracked anyway back to story

After about 4 months I was put into a senior rep role and I was starting to take of team meetings etc and then I made a choice to move to Australia now I promised I would be honest so it was for a girl and not your mum, but I’m so glad I took that chance because you wouldn’t exist if all this hadn’t of happened, well I arrived in Dec 2003 lived in the heart of the concrete jungle in Darlinghurst, yes kids Darlinghurst, Underbelly Razor styles (kidding).

I was preapproved for a position at TeleTech Australia as they were outs sourced work for Bigpond Telstra ISP. I had to start all over again from the beginning and this is where I meet Uncle Dave kid.

 I have always been quietly confident in my abilities and within 6 months I being in the first level tech support I moved into the 2^nd level support or the Supervisor role, called CRU – Customer Resolution Unit. I was and still am proud of this role and my team.  I eventually got Uncle Dave into CRU as well; he was my only Australian Friend I had right from day one in training.

This is where I meet your mother. (wow I feel like that show) lol.

One month after you were born Tivianh, I received I phone call from my mother. She was hyperventilating on the phone. She had been reading the NZ Hearld in the waiting room of her GP’s office while waiting to get a checkup. While reading the paper she saw it, my father’s obituary, he had died. I found out he had cancer, yes kids cancer and it took himlike it would take your Nana in 2010. He was sick when he meet me for the first time as an adult and I didn’t know, the reason he disconnected his number was he was in a hospital slowly getting worse. (I feel bad for all the thoughts that went through my mind that day.

 (things aren’t always as they seem kids, don’t assume things, assumption is the mother fucker of all fuckups.)

I will save the rest for another day, but there are something’s.  I want to let you know.

 I’m not the smartest or most educated person as anyone can tell by reading this and most people who have been around me would pick up on that…..but when I put my mind to something I have always achieved it, no matter how big or small. I shine bright with the things I enjoy doing and I take pride in my work , I a really good person, I can be a best friend, the best loyal person to the end I know a lot of people but have few friends. People I know would drop everything for me and be there if I needed them. I know they would do the same for you my children my family. Thiey are great people and they know who they are…

Jay Patel, Meets Patel, Adam McGrath, Jason Menon, Dave Yazdani, Shane Dunn. 6 friends in this world. I am making more but I am too pretend I’m something I’m not. I am who I am if you want to know me talk to me, share with me and ill share with you. Just say hi and smile and with that then that’s all you’ll get back and we cannot really know each other that’s ok with me.

I am now 31 years old, at times I feel older it has only been since your mother started this blog that I have started to feel younger and excited about things again.

I still have my days and your mother will tell you so where I thing I hate the world or just hate people, for what they do to each other. I hate them for what they are not doing…I have my days.

Sometimes in life kids some people will look at you and judge and not get to know you. The people that take time to get to know me would find I’m actually really interesting and my quirky ways are sometimes geeky but cool at the same time and it rubs off on people.

Ask Uncle Adam he thinks and it could be true.  I was the one who first said the kiwi saying Meeeaaaan. As in mean, like the meanest, as in bad meaning good, as in the meanest of the mean nothing can compete. Yeah you know what I’m talking about. I have a lot of crazy terminology I us,  some my own and some I have acquired due to my location on this planet. Ill share just a few…

I wonder if I’ll start hearing them in Australia more and more, let’s see I’ll try explain them as bestest I can… yes I meant to say bestest even though that’s not a word.

1)
Gravy – Something extra
That’s gravy…ok so gravy who doesn’t love gravy. It’s like the little extra touch to make your Sunday roast or that steak all good.

So when you look at your bank account and find you got paid a bonus and didn’t realise it until you’re out and about with friends ..cha ching, that’s GRAVY

2)
Mint – Perfect
This is harder to explain but when something looks good its MINT, you she a nice car and the body is straight and engine looks nice, it’s in MINT condition…its perfect. When you see Jessica Alba you say oh Meeaaan she’s Mint. Next time you get the perfect gift or see something that’s perfect, that’s right it’s ………

3) Meaaaan

Well I have already explained this one, but incase you slow at catching up, David Dallas is mean, Battlefield is mean, call of duty is mean, my computer is mean. My wife, my kids. my family is mean…correction there meeeaaaaaan, nothing can compare.

To my family I love you, and I hope we build great memories together and one day you can share them with your own familes.

Love dad.