 I had to do a story on a local bikey club for people aged over 50 and it's called the Whittlesey Ulysses Club. They allowed me to join them on a little toy run where they pick up toys for underprivileged kids. What I love about the Australian people is that they would go out of their way to help anyone. I've experienced that a lot in my seven years living in Melbourne. I was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, although I was an only child I lived in a family with five or six people. So I never felt lonely growing up. My parents got divorced when I was ten and when I was sixteen I knew that I had to come here for the sake of my further studies. It surprised me to see how worried our relatives and friends were and my mum just told them it's just the two of us and we'll be fine. The office I work in has about 25 to 30 people. I'm the only journalist who works for the Whittlesey Review so I report directly to my editor. I work on each weekdays. If it's a Friday or Monday I'm definitely at work in Kilmore getting stuff done to deadline. Other days I fill with interviews and taking photographs to fill the following week's paper. There seem to be a lot of eccentric people in Australia. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm the way I am that I draw people like that to me. But it's so easy to get along with people in Australia because most of them have a good sense of humour. The places I cover, Whittlesey, King Lake, Kilmore, they're all on the northern fringe of Melbourne so it's more a mix of country and urban. King Lake in the last year seems Black Saturday. The bushfires, February 7, 2009. I was there on the Sunday and it was just really heart-wrenching to watch people talk to the Red Cross and then suddenly you'd hear a blood-curdling scream when they'd heard bad news. Almost 200 people died and people I knew. Trying to balance personal feelings with being professional was a big challenge for me. While driving up the roads to King Lake I kept thinking of how it was when I was taken up there a few days after Black Saturday and how empty and barren it all looked. You saw all these cars on the sides of the main road and you knew there'd been people in the car at the time they'd burned. Before Black Saturday the lowest bushfire danger level was moderate and the highest was extreme but now they've added catastrophic and that just means get out. I hear the bushfires really did bring out the best in those communities because people were really focused on rebuilding. It was just amazing how people dug so deeply and I'm not exactly sure how it's affected me but I do feel sad yet inspired every time I think of Black Saturday and what happened afterwards. I like going to the gym which I find is really great after a stressful day. I don't think any of my friends really care about how I look. If anything at all it would just be people from my own community or my family members they relate that to marriage ability. It's exercise and it's strenuous but at the end you walk up feeling refreshed and energised to take on something else. While I like to mix it up in the kitchen Mum tends to be more of a traditionalist she likes her Sri Lankan curry. I like things spicy so it's not always a problem until she tries to put kairi powder in my pasta sauce. Mum and I we have a weird relationship she can be my mum at times so if I say look I need some serious advice she takes on that role. I've always been able to talk to her about anything mostly anything there's something that I just tell my friends about. Being a migrant didn't help me have a rounded view of people. Everyone I said at the end of the day were all the same. For example the guys at the Ulysses when I first drove past I was a little intimidated but then I got to know them and these guys just do a marvellous job. All in all I'm definitely happy with where my life sat right now. I feel very proud to live in Australia. Black Saturday was an experience I will always remember but journalism helped me embed myself in the mainstream society in Australia.