Day 64-70: Sydney (Week 5)
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2004
1
16
57
Trip End
Jan 05, 2006
Sydney,
Australia
Monday, November 22, 2004
In the morning I called up and chased a few jobs which I'd sent my CV off for over the weekend. Got chatting to a few recruitment consultants and they seemed quite positive about my CV tho a couple suggested that I should split them and have one for Support/Helpdesk type jobs and a seperate one for Notes stuff, plus I need to pad them out a bit too, build my part up a bit! One of the guys mentioned he had some PC installation work at the end of the week and wondered if I was interested....of course I was. It's only 10 hours work over 2 days but at $25 an hour it'll be a little bit of pocket money...not a lot really after the tax and super (pension - don't ask...it's compulsory!) comes out but it'll get me off the streets for a little while, getting bored with sitting in the park all day drinking cheap cider...(JOKE!).
After the job stuff I went to the gym as usual, different Instructor at the Combat class today, Gabby. Excellent class, best instructor I've seen so far - she was teaching with another guy, Igor (I think) and he was normal looking - in other words more like me than these ripped, toned things that I've seen teaching so far! Means at least I may have a chance getting work here. Spoke to Gabby after the class and she said there's plenty of Combat instructors in Sydney but it's hard to find GOOD ones....well obviously I'm here to redress that balance! She seemed quite positive about potential for work and told me to let her know when I was qualified to teach over here.
After gym nipped home and then went to Bondi for the afternoon to top up the tan and get those bits which are still a bit pasty a bit more tan. Smothered myself in factor 15 so didn't get really top much up at all...lol, but it was a very nice afternoon relaxing and watching the world and totty go by, even took my top off today! Poor things around me didn't know what had hit them, it's all a bit intimidating with all the beautiful bronzed and buff things walking around, but hey, there were worse looking specimens than me lying around!
Tuesday:
Didn't do much in the morning other than slob around watching telly. In the afternoon I had to go to the recruitment consultancy which has given me the work on fri and sat. Had to sign a few bits of paper and give them my bank details so they could pay me. Spoke to me about another potential Notes job but think that they may want more of an Administrator than Developer. One of the problems I have is the 3 month rule on the visa, otherwise there'd be loads of jobs, but obviously I can't go for anything permanent or longer than 3 months so that rules out quite a lot of things.
Done a little bit of tourist stuff on the way home, went to the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) which is a big shopping centre but it's in a 100 year old historic building so took a few piccies in there, plus the christmas tree is up and it's huge! Goes all the way from the ground floor up 3 storeys to the top of the central dome, got some good pics so they'll appear online at some point.
In the evening I met a guy called Camilo for drinks, we'd been chatting on and off for a couple of weeks on the net. Had a really good evening, got quite a lot in common with interests in photography and design. He's an Art Director for an ad agency in Sydney so he's quite creative. He's another Spanish guy - well actually from Columbia - dunno what it is about Latinos but I seem to attract them. Anyway, it'll probably be a friends thing which is good coz I need more of them, probably catch up again at the weekend.
Wednesday:
Tourist day today....started off by going down to Circular Quay and then walked around to The Rocks. The Rocks is the most historic part of Sydney and is where the First Fleet stepped ashort in 1788 down in the harbour - and if you wanna know more use the link, can't be bothered to do a full history lesson! Obviously it's a great place for pics and it's also the area where the Harbour Bridge was built so walked around and under the bridge - not over it yet tho.
By lunchtime the weather had cleared a bit and there was less cloud so thought it would be a good day to go and do the Sydney Tower. It's not the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere - that's apparently in New Zealand - but it does have the tallest observation deck which is about 280 metres about street level. As you can imagine the views are amazing. Although it was a clearish afternoon there was still a little bit of haze in the distance so you couldn't see quite as far as I'd have liked but you could still see for miles and miles. Of course I took loads of pics and got the big camera out for the first time in Sydney. By late afternoon tho the cloud had rolled back in so I'd timed it just perfect.
Early evening I went to the gym, went to the Bond St Fitness First this time to do Combat and it was another different Instructor, Tamara, and she was rubbish!! If most instructors are like that then I've got no competition. However I noticed that she'd just taught a Circuit class, and then after Combat she taught Pump! So no wonder she was crap, she must have been knackered, the club shouldn't really have instructors doing 3 hours of classes in a row. Was shattered after the class and the jog home so had a nice night in front of the telly.
Thursday:
First thing was catching up on some net stuff. Checked my registration online with the REP and I'm now registered with them so I can call Fitness Australia and get the ball rolling on being able to teach Combat over here. Also applied for a couple more jobs online and one of the agencies called me about 5 mins after I'd applied to say they're gonna put my CV forward for a Notes job so we'll see how that goes.
Went to the gym over lunch and went to another Combat class, it was Gabby teaching again and on about the 6th track she asked if I wanted to go up on the stage and team teach with her for the last 2....of course I did - absolutely bloody knackered, she got me up for the 2 hardest tracks! Afterwards I told her that I could now register with Fitness Australia and she also mentioned that there's a quarterly workshop on Sunday in Sydney where they'll be releasing the next version of combat, she said even if I didn't take part I should go along as you can watch from the viewing area and don't need to pay for that. She also said that if I said hi to her she'd introduce me to some other instructors and get some contacts so that would be really good.
After gym I made a few calls to Fitness Oz (FA) and Les Mills. Now after waiting to register with the REP in the UK and thinking that was all I needed to do it turns out my first aid certificate won't be recognised over here, and I need that before I can register with FA, they could have bloody told me that before!!!! So now I gotta do the First Aid course which is going to be $160, booked that with the Red Cross and doing that next Thur and Fri. I've also got to fill in some forms and fax them with copies of my certs to FA - and the grand total to join them plus get 1 years insurance so I can teach is $320 - so $480 just to be able to teach combat!! Great, as I've said before I'm spending more in this bloody country to try to get work than I am making, god I hope I get something to pay for all this soon. The bar certificates I got were a total waste of money and who know's if I'll get any work from the casting agency!
Then I called Les Mills who are the people that run Combat over here and spoke to them about the workshop, turns out it's $60 for the workshop (and bear in mind that's one hour!), and if I want to buy the music and video for Combat 22 that's another $55, so I've got to add that to the $480 to make a grand total of $595 to be ready to teach combat - that's about £250...don't even know how much instructors get paid an hour over here. Oh well, guess it'll enable me to do something I enjoy doing so i'm hoping it'll be worth it. As for the workshop I'll go along but not sure if I'm gonna do the workshop, will think about it a bit.
In the evening it was the SGLC practice as usual, no new songs to report. Enjoying chatting and meeting Chris at the meetings, he's a very funny guy and one of the few people that makes me laugh, would like to be mates with him. Actually saw him on Sunday at the Newtown festival with his boyf, so at least I know he's not single! After the rehearsal I went to the net cafe again to print off the FA forms and fax them over so they'd pic them up in the morning - god it's expensive not having access to my own PC and and office fax!
Friday:
Did bugger all in the morning to prepare myself for the first work I've had to do since the beginning of August. I had to prepare myself mentally and physically and felt the best way to do this was to lay in bed as long as possible. So set off about 11.30, god it was humid, not great weather to be walking into the city in jeans, so thought I'd get the bus in, prayed that one of the newer air conditioned ones would pull up and thankfully it did....but the bloody aircon wasn't working! It was hotter on the bus than outside coz there's no windows to open.
Anyway found the place after I'd been given the wrong address by the contractor. The work basically involved disconnecting about 600 PCs across several floors in an office block, the company was moving offices over the weekend. After getting a lovely polo shirt to wear we set off in a few teams to start the job, there were about 15 of us altogether. Mid afternoon they bought us some food and we had a break, had a chance to speak to a few of the other guys and most of them were travellers of course; english, irish, swedish, aussie. A couple were IT guys that just pick up whatever work they can whilst inbetween jobs. We were done by about 5pm, not particularly difficult uncabling machines and sticking stuff in a bag, the major work will be tomorrow when we have to reconnect everything we've disconnected at the new location.
Wandered home, was still pretty humid and it really hit after being in an air conditioned office for the afternoon, however it had started to rain, actually it was quite nice, it was so warm that you didn't really mind it. I had plans to meet a guy called Martin around 7 for some food and drinks but he cancelled claiming his ATM card had stopped working so had no money...well it's original anyway! So updated some stuff on the net and stopped off at the Oxford for a quick one on the way home....didn't want a late one as I had to get up at 6.30am on Saturday.
Saturday:
So 6.30am came....actually it wasn't too difficult to get up as I wasn't too late and it's light in the morning, but I could still have thought of better things to be doing at that time of the morning....like sleeping! Walked into work this morning as it was much cooler, bit of a longer walk than yesterdays job as the new offices were next to the harbour in the AMP building, this is one of Sydney's first skyscrapers and the views from the upper floors were fantastic over the harbour looking to the northern suburbs with the bridge and opera house below. So the task today was to reconnect and test 600 PCs, and supposedly I was going to be working until midday! Highly unlikely, relocations always seem to go on longer than expected - in the end I worked until 8pm! And they still hadn't completely finished though they weren't far off...I mean I can't complain coz I was paid by the hour and in the end over the 2 days I ended up doing 18 hours at $25 an hour so it's a nice bit of pocket money. It wasn't the most difficult work, but it was mind-numbing and repetitive, plus there was lots of getting up and down from underneath desks.
By the time I'd finished I was shattered! And my poor hands...they haven't seen such manual labour for sooo long! But the money is good and they said that there may be some work on Monday but when I left they weren't far off finishing so doubt there will be. They do these moves once/twice a month apparently so might get some more work in the future if I'm still jobless. The guy who I was supposed to meet yesterday, Martin, actually got in touch before I left work asking if I wanted to try that drink again...must admit I was surprised coz I assumed last nights reason was a load of bollocks, makes a change for me to be wrong on that front. Anyway, met him on the way home from work and I hadn't eaten since lunch so we popped into a Korean restaurant. Never had Korean before but it's all much of a muchness to me, some weird side dishes were brought out - think they had vegetables or something in them - eurgh!
After that we went to an Irish bar in Surry Hills, The Porterhouse, for a couple. We had quite a good conversation ranging from music to road laws to politics...all quite cerebral for a saturday night. He actually lives in Botany Bay which is quite a way from Sydney city so we finished the night early ish so he could get the bus back. Think we'll meet again maybe, he's good to chat to and we've got some common interests so might catch a movie sometime.
So another Saturday night in bed by 12! Oh dear....
Sunday:
There was a kind of reason for having an early one last night, today was the Les Mills Quarterly Workshops - ie the Body Combat thing. In these workshops loads of instructors go to see the new releases (the new music and choreography) for all the Body Training Systems of which Body Combat is one. They also get the chance to look at other programs and take part. So I arrived in time to see the new combat release which looked good and has some great music, also looks bloody hard work too! Decided not to actually take part and save the $60, I mean after all I could sit and watch everything for free.
Met up with Gabby too and had a quick chat with her, she introduced me to a guy called Vincent who runs the Group Fitness Programs at the University of Sydney Sports Centre which is were the workshops were being held, he said I should come along to one of the combat classes and that he's always looking for instructors. After speaking with Gabby it sounds like he's quite a perfectionist so I hope I'm good enough!
After the combat class I watched Body Attack which is high intensity aerobics class, looks amazing and the music is excellent, but no way I could ever teach it, very very hard work, need to be really fit and agile to teach it, and about 2 stone lighter too! Done a bit of shopping too...bought the new combat music and DVD and a Combat top and Les Mills top so I look the business when I get some teaching work.
Had a couple of hours to kill before the Body Jam workshop so wandered up the road to Newtown as it wasn't too far away. Just wandered around the shops, had a coffee, read the paper, had a drink, nice sunday afternoon relaxing. Went back for the Jam workshop...Jam is basically a kind of dance class, bit difficult to describe so you'll have to look at the website. But I've been to a couple of Jam classes in the UK and really enjoyed them, they're not physically demanding but the choreography is quite tough. Really enjoyed watching the workshop and am very tempted to go on the Jam training course in Sydney in December with a view to teaching it, be another string to the bow.
Got the bus back into town after and stopped off at the net cafe to update and finish this weeks diary. Ended up going for a drink with a really interesting bloke who owns a couple of restaurants here in Sydney and Melbourne, he's also a really keen photographer so we had loads to chat about. He's taken the photos which are being used in his restaurants and is into B+W photography, he's also looking to update the websites for the restaurants so could well help him out with that. His name's Arron and he usually lives in Melbourne and just comes up to Sydney every now again as the restaurants here have only recently opened.
And that brought week 5 to an end.
