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Sydney, Australia
Una arquitecto en construcción de un nuevo proyecto de vida...

viernes, 16 de marzo de 2012

One month after arriving - some impressions II

Ok... last post the only thing I did was write about time. In this one I'm going to address some other aspects (with no particular order)

SKILLMAX course:
Some people say it's a wonder and you MUST take it... some other people say it's useless to attend to it. MY OPINION so far (just finished my 2nd week there)  is: do it!!! and do it for several reasons: (1) They teach you things about recruiters and the Australian job Market that you just don't know; they even teach you about if the recruiters like or don't like bold and underlined resumes; (2) Your teacher not only corrects your resume like a hundred times (so far I've corrected mine 3 times) but also advises you what to say word by word in an interview depending on your work experience; (3) at least 12 hours a week you HAVE TO practise your English; (4) this is a very good opportunity to listen to other accents and try to understand them; and (5) you get to socialise a bit... and even maybe get a job through networking (you never know).

The distances: although you may have noticed from my previous posts, Sydney is a really LARGE city, so you have to evaluate before moving, where do you want to live (ask around about the suburbs), prioritise what is important to you: time?, money?, your own body? I'm assuming all of the above, but sadly you can't have it all in Sydney.

It can take you up to 2 hours to go from a place to another, easily!!! and may be even more at night depending on where you life. So, if you're short of money there's something you'll need to sacrifice.

Transport system: in general, for a newly arrivedRAIL and FERRY MAP for SYDNEY, Sydney had a pretty decent transport system (if you have more than 5 years you'll say the system is DREADFUL*) jejeje... well anyway... even I that come from a country with a really DREADFUL transport system, notice that this one has a lot of flaws, that it can be easily improved. For example there are places where you can. only access by bus... when you think about it it's not bad at all, the problem comes when you have to leave early in the morning or arrive late at night... the farther* away and less connection you have with the city the more the chances if having a working bus decreases.

The language - talking and understanding the Englishes: no, that isn't a mistake or a typo, I'm aware there is a spelling and grammar mistake, but I did it on purpose!!! Because here there isn't just one English, there are LOTS of different Englishes!!!! jajaja, the Aussie, the British, the American, the Latin-American, the Chinese, the Korean, the Thai, the Iranian, and so on and on. It's a little bit tricky to understand all of them, but sincerely so far (until today) I didn't have so much trouble understanding people... of course with some people you have to be more attentive*, but in general it was ok; sometimes there were things I didn't understand but nothing out of this world... UNTIL TODAY!!!! Today at my tutorial I had the most hard time understanding my students!!! Since this week we changed our groups into are definitive* ones, and in mine I have like 10 Asians (got the feeling all of them Chinese) from which I couldn't understand 3 of them at all!!! I just nodded :S and there was also this Australian guy that seemed he had a potato in his mouth!!! he was the worst of all, the most difficult one for me to understand... I wanted to run away from there!!! :( But well, next week I'll come a lot more prepared (psychologically) and I know it'll be a lot easier and better.

The odours: well it's not like some may say that everyone in the train stinks, in fact I haven't had so many encounters* of that type; but what I can say with property is that the few people with b.o. (body odour) they don't just smell bad, they REALLY STINK!!! Stink in a way even if you keep your breath, you still can smell them!!! The worst that's happened to me so far was my first day of classes 2 weeks ago. I was walking from home to get the bus and this odour came to me, I didn't know where it was coming from. I couldn't believe it when I realised it was a man more than a block away from me!!! Do you want to know the worst part? He took the same bus I took... you can imagine the rest.

Looking for a place to share: ok, this is the most difficult thing ever!!! jajaja... what I was talking before about sacrifice, well in order for me to live near the city, so it doesn't take me 2 hours at night to come home or stay as a refugee on weekends, and most of all that I can afford, well I have to let go for a while the idea of living by myself... I have to share a flat. So far I've looked at 5 places... and well I'm still looking. In another post I'll write specifically about that.

Well that's it for tonight!!! This post is getting a larger than I planned

6 comentarios:

  1. Hi Gaby!...

    Nice to read about your new experiences in OZ... those classes are going to be an excellent practice to your multi-cultural listening and speaking english hahahahaha... Did you buy your iphone finally?

    Best wishes and hoping to read about you again!

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  2. Hi Eduardo!!! thx for your comment :-) as you say those classes are going to be great for my understanding of the multi-cultural English listening.
    About the iPhone not yet, second attempt also failed... it seems I'm too honest for this country jajaja
    When I finally buy it I'll write a post about THE PROCESS of getting one

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  3. Hi Gaby. I hope you're doing great over there. If everything goes well, I'll be in Oz this October, so I'd like to know about your experience looking to share a flat. I'm looking forward to your post about it.

    Saludos and I wish you the best

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  4. Thanks Bob...

    I'll do that as soon as I find a place to live :D

    Congrats about coming in October!!!!

    Cheers

    Gaby

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  5. Gaby, your blog is awesome!!. So descriptive, I feel I´m there when I´m reading it. Please don´t stop writting!!!
    People like me, who is planning to live there as soon as possible, appreciates such a detailed description of the experiences you are living right now.
    Greetings from Caracas

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  6. Hi Marcos

    I'm really happy you like my blog and that it's helping you to get a glance on what living in Oz is like.
    Hope you have a successful migration experience too.
    Cheers
    Gaby

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