From Modelling to Travelling the World: What I’ve Been up to Recently
Putting an end to the Rachel lore of the past 6 months
I touched down in Toronto three weeks ago on June 26th. It’s been a great time getting settled in to my new job and apartment, connecting with old friends, and seeing familiar places around Toronto again. Before that, my past 6 months was filled with miscellaneous adventures, from backpacking Europe solo to working as a car salesperson in Melbourne (yes, that happened). Here’s a quick recap of my adventures, and a fun little way to sum up the time I had away from home.
January
On December 28th 2022, I left for a backpacking expedition across Europe. I had a month and a bit off due to my exchange term coming up, so I figured what better way to spend it than travelling a continent I had never been to before?
This was a huge learning experience for me. I had never flown internationally before this trip, and had a lot of little surprises, from things as little as bathrooms and water not being free in Europe to learning how to navigate complex transit systems in foreign languages. It was an incredible time though, and the more I look back on it, the more it was the right decision for me. Some hostels I stayed in back in January are now 3–4x the price (think 150$-200$ a night for a shared room) due to the Euro summer/post-Covid travel craze going on right now, and it’s simply more dangerous and stressful to travel for the first time on-peak season. This trip also prepared me well for solo travelling around Thailand and Japan, which I’ll get more into later.
February
After ending my trip in Lisbon, I came back to Toronto/Waterloo for a week. The main reason was to participate in the CFA Ethics Challenge, but it also allowed me to attend the UW Fall Awards Ceremony and catch up with my friends in Waterloo. I hadn’t seen most of them in over 5 months since my previous co-op term was in Victoria, so it was really nice to see everyone again.
I headed back home to Calgary shortly after for less than 24 hours. It was mostly to drop off my winter clothes/pick up my summer stuff for Australia, but it was also my birthday! So spent half the day with family, the other half with the Air Canada crew as I prepared to take the grueling 20 hour flight to Melbourne. (Side note: Time is not real anymore.)
The rest of February was spent getting used to my new sharehouse, adjusting to the 16 hour time difference, and enjoying the beaches and sunshine with my new friends. I started my exchange courses at Monash University at the end of February, and continued until the end of the semester mid-June. I took a full course load, which is 4 courses per term over there.
My Time in Australia
During my time in Australia, I held 6 part-time jobs (yes, 6!). Most of them were casual/freelance and definitely not all of them were held concurrently, so it was easier to manage than you may think. This isn’t the way I originally thought my exchange was going to go, but I found myself with quite a bit of free time (even after travelling and exploring a significant amount) and wanted to try out things that I may not get to do at other points in my life. I’m incredibly grateful for all the different paths I got to see during my time down under.
My 6 jobs were as follows:
Job #1: Modelling
I signed up to a freelance model site at the beginning of my stay and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of work I received. I had spent years building up my portfolio in Toronto and Calgary, and it was cool to see that work finally come to fruition. I had enough jobs coming in from modelling eventually that it was almost a full time gig. During my time there, I worked for brands like Fjallraven, L’Oreal, The Sporting Globe, and City of Melbourne. I met so many incredible creatives in the community there.
Job #2, #3, and #4: Trivia Host, Brand Ambassador, and BYD Stand Host
Through that same site, I was also exposed to various other random freelance gigs. Essentially, the idea was that because people on this site were all models/actors, they would likely be interested in casual work they can book on the side of their main hustle. One of these gigs was hosting trivia at a local bar one night/week, which was definitely out of my comfort zone! Although I had experience public speaking from Debate and Model UN, I didn’t have much of the Australian accent, history, or background knowledge to pull off a lot of these trivia questions. However, I thought it would be a cool thing to try, and as time went on I got more comfortable in the role. I learned a lot about Australia through this job surprisingly, and was genuinely sad to leave my regulars at the end of my time there.
I was also hired on as a brand ambassador with XPO Talent working on various activations across Melbourne! My largest job with them was at the M&M Stand at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, but I also did some work on their Lindt Easter Bunny Campaign. This was definitely one of my more sporadic gigs, but the pay was incredible and the work was genuinely very fun, I always had a blast on those jobs.
As my last job that’s part of this similar realm, I was also a car stand host for BYD! If you haven’t heard of them, BYD is an up-and-coming affordable electric car company. They also make the batteries for Tesla. They just launched their first model in Australia a few months ago and they needed help generating buzz. I worked 1–2x a week at their stand in the mall, walking people through the features of the car and offering test drives. I learned so much about EVs and vehicles in general from this job, and the team I worked with was truly spectacular. This job as a whole honestly made me consider going into sales. I find the psychology behind how marketers present and pitch to people really fascinating. I also learned a lot about leadership from my boss, Mel.
Job #5: Data Fluency Instructor
Back at the beginning of March, I had applied for a position through the Jobs for Students program at my exchange university. I hadn’t heard back for a while, and truthfully kind of forgot about it until they reached out to give me an interview mid-April and hired me! My role was to teach workshops to researchers about how to use Python, Git, R, and Unix to further their research capabilities. This was honestly the perfect role. It allowed me to use and strengthen my Comp Sci knowledge, while also being flexible hours and work-from-home. The pay was also incredible (I made nearly twice as much per hour as I am making in my Co-op now). The only downside was that it was often just ~5–10 hours per week, but still a really great job.
Job #6: UGC Creator
I kind of fell into this one naturally as a side effect of modelling. With this job, I created TikTok's, reels, and photos of branded content. I didn’t need to post anything on my social media channels, it was purely for theirs.
It honestly started out just for fun and to get exposure to the world of social media marketing. It grew to the point though that brands started reaching out to me for collabs, and I also developed pretty close relationships with 2 ad agencies in Melbourne. I would get pretty regular work from them, with them sending the postings straight to my inbox instead of going online. It felt pretty cool to be honest, I loved being able to do work that didn’t feel like work. Plus, the products were essentially gifts, with payment being the cherry on top!
Travel
I was fortunate to travel to 4 different places while I was on exchange, with April and June being my main travel months.
Tasmania
April held the term’s reading week, and during then I travelled to Tasmania with 11 of my friends. We rented two camper vans and just roamed around the state for a week; hiking, making campfires, and exploring. This is probably one of my fondest memories I have of the whole experience. Camping wasn’t glamorous, it was at times cold, wet, and exhausting, but with 11 other people it creates a special bond and unique memories.
Tasmania itself is quite special. It reminds me of the Victoria (BC) of Australia, as it is also an island and has a unique temperate climate. Tasmania had beaches right next to mountains, with Caribbean-blue ocean one day, snowfall in the clouds the next. It also had very diverse wildlife. Here, we saw plenty of wombats, wallabies, and even the giant spiders I was promised about by all my friends back home ;)
Thailand
A week after that, I set off solo to Thailand. It wasn’t actually my original intention to go solo. I had asked multiple friends if they wanted to go, and although a few were close to saying yes, they all backed out due to various work/school/life related reasons. This kinda made sense, as I was going in the middle of the semester. Luckily, all of my subjects had assignments handed in online, and because all of my jobs were casual, I just simply did not pick up any work for those two weeks away.
Thailand was a dream. I think it is my favorite place I have travelled to so far. For $1.5K in total (flights, accommodation, food, everything), I had an incredible two weeks filled with good food, beautiful adventures, and tropical sunsets. I visited Phuket, Phi Phi, Ao Nang, Koh Tao, Koh Phangan, and Bangkok. I went scuba diving for the first time in the beautiful island of Koh Tao, among crystal blue water, rainbow colored fish, and even sea turtles and sharks! I also went snorkeling in Phuket, attended the Full Moon party in Koh Phangan (that one deserves a whole story on its own), and visited the outdoor markets in Bangkok. The islands were personally my favorite part though, and I will definitely be back to visit them again in the future (as well as to see gorgeous Northern Thailand!)
Brisbane
At the beginning of June, I had a short visit in Brisbane. At this point, I had been hearing about all my friends’ plans to backpack the East Coast of Australia after our term. I was wondering if I would regret not having seen it before I left, so I idly started looking on the freelance site for modelling jobs in Brisbane. I told myself that if I booked one, I would go. Sure enough, I booked a L’Oreal gig up there, and that’s how I went to Queensland for 4 days.
Brisbane was glamorous. It was a smaller city than Melbourne, but everything from the way its buildings were designed to the public art they chose to display spoke of more class. Don’t get me wrong, I love Melbourne and its culture and charm, but it was interesting to see what other cities in Australia looked like. I’ve heard Brisbane is a bit more similar to Sydney in that regard. Brisbane also housed a koala sanctuary, which is where I got to hold and pet a koala (bucket list dream come true).
Japan
On June 17, I packed up all my stuff in Melbourne, said goodbye to my 4 beloved roommates, and set off to Japan. The beginning of this trip was WILD, because my phone mysteriously broke at my going-away party the night before, and would not turn on the entire first day and a half of my trip. I had to navigate the airports, getting to the hotel, and the first day without a functioning maps or data. From dealing with my severely-overweight suitcase to running through the Gold Coast airport trying to make my 1.5 hour international connection, that trip was a mission. But anyways, we made it! I spent 5 days in Tokyo as a “build your own” layover before heading back to Canada.
Tokyo is an incredibly fast-paced city, where everything was so different than I had ever seen but yet still so safe. I LOVED the transit (sorry not sorry TTC), and thought the city did an excellent job of balancing population growth with investment in parks, museums, and libraries. There also seemed to be a café for everything in Tokyo, from river otters to capybaras. I definitely see how people do multiple trips to here, because there is no way you would ever see everything in one trip.
Now
For now, I am back to regular programming, working this summer as a Business Systems Analyst Intern at TD. I am enjoying this summer living in the beautiful and vibrant downtown Toronto with my best friend(!!!), and am excited to return to Waterloo in the Fall after being away for a year. Life was great then, life is great now.
And that’s it! Thanks for reading.
