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 arrived, 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

Documents and renting

As I told you in my last post, the day I arrived I applied to get  the TFN and the day after I enrolled myself in Medicare.

Well, last Wednesday I got by mail the letter of the Australian Taxation Office with my TFN. Now I can legally get paid when I get a job and I can go to the bank to register my TFN in order to get full interest on my savings account without the government tax withholding.
Later this week on Friday I got my Medicare card, also by mail.

 

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Now, about renting, I'm talking about looking for a place to live. Although I have already rented a place for 8 weeks and I have only been here for 2 (I still have 6 more weeks in my current place), I have started to look around some of the suburbs of Sydney. This not only to get to know them, but also because of a matter of time. I've been told that here most places that are shown for rent/lease are not available right away. Most of the times the list comes out 2-4 weeks before it actually becomes available for you to move in. So in about 2 weeks I have to formally begin to look for a place to live.

Although Juanpa and Caro told me I can stay there for two more weeks than we agreed, and though I really like North Parramatta, I do want to start looking for another place closer to the city, or at least closer to the train station, where I don't have to depend on the bus. Even better I'd like to look for a place near my full-time job (which I'm going to get really soon) in order for me to walk there or at most go by bike.

In that order of ideas I've found that North Parramatta is REALLY FAR from the civilization... it takes me about an hour and a half on weekdays to get to the city, from the moment I open my door. On weekends it may be a little bit longer... and that is in regular bases. Yesterday, for example, there where train repairs in 4 stations prior to Parramatta, so I had to take a bus from Granville... well, going from Zetland where Arturo and Cari live (near the CBD) to my place and then to Coogee beach (like 20-30 min by bus from Central Station) took us about 4 and a half hours!!!!!!! We got to the beach almost at 7 pm... as you can imagine we didn't bathe or anything. We walked for a while, ate something, spent some time there and around 10:30 went back home. Well, I stayed all weekend with them at their place... if after going to Coogee I would have wanted to go home, it would have taken me at LEAST 2 hours, and I'm not sure I would have found a bus at that hour of the night.

… So, I want to move closer to the city. It would be great to live there by myself in a one-bedroom unit, but it’s quite expensive; so I’m considering sharing a two-bedrooms, two-bathrooms unit with someone (if you, reader, are interested in this, don’t hesitate in contacting me).

On the next post I’ll write about the areas I’d love or at least would be nice to live in.